

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 


Shelf j.ttSJo 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 











■ 










































' 








. 





















. 























































































































































• ■ 














































. 








































































































. 










. 
































































































NALL V 


Globe library. 


l. . ■ 




L. Herbert Andrews 










A CREAM FOR THE TEETH 


Prominent professional pnd business men, rrtists, den- 
tists, notable ladies and refined people everywhere, h ve 
been pleased with the snow-whi f e Zonweiss, the beautiful 
blue jar containing it and the little white spoon fjr putting 
it on the brush. 

Zonweiss is made from New Materials. 


There is nothing like it in the World 


FROM SENATOR COGGESHALL :-“I cheerfully recommend Zon- 
weiss on account of its puriiy and cleansing properties.” 

MRS. GENERAL LOGAN’S DENTIST,— Dr. E. S. Carroll, Washing- 
ton, D. (’., says:— “I have had Zonweiss analyzed. It is the most refined, 
pure and perfect dentifrice I have ever seen.” 

THE WELCH DENTAL CO., PHILADELPHIA Dentists every- 
where praise Zonweiss.” 

HARVARD COLLEGE.— “The professors and students of Harvard 
College are using Zonweias.” Ueo. F. Dinsmore. 

Sold by all Druggists, or sent by mail on receipt of 35 cents, by ' 

JOHNSON & JOHNSON, 23 Cedar Street, N. Y. 




©07 






Randy McNally Sc Co/s Indexed Atlas of the World. (Sold only by 


Subscription.) 

Containing large scale maps of every Country and Civil Division upon the 
face of the Globe, together with historical, statistical and descriptive matter rela- 
tive to each. Illustrated by colored diagrams, showing increase or decrease of 
population, wealth, debt and taxation, civil condition of people, chief productions, 
articles of manufacture and commerce, religious sects, etc. Accompanied by a new 
and original compilation, forming a ready-reference Index, which presents as its 
special feature, the arrangement in alphabetical order of nearly all known geograph- 
ical names. In connection herewith is given the population of every city, town and 
village in the world that of the United States of America being taken from the 
census returns of 1880. 93 maps, 251 diagrams, 928 pages. 

Raud, McNally Sc Co/s Complete Business Atlas and Shippers’ Guide. 
Price, $12.50 ; or $16.00 with Monthly Supplemental Changes. 

Containing large scale maps of the Dominion of Canada, Old Mexico, Central 
America, Cuba, and the several States and Territories of the United States, to- 
gether with a complete Reference Map of the World, printed in colors, accompanied 
by a new and original compilation and ready-reference Index, and accurately locat- 
ing all cities, towns, post offices, railroad stations, villages, counties, parishes, 
islands, lakes, rivers, mountains, etc., showing in detail the entire Railroad System, 
The new and special features of this edition are: locating the branches of 
particular divisions of railroads upon which each station is located, the nearest 
mailing point of all local places, designating money-order offices, telegraph stations, 
and naming the Express Company doing business at the points where the several 
companies nave offices, and the full census returns to date. 500 pages. 

Rand, McNally & Co/s New Railroad and. County Map of the United 
States and Canada, mounted upon cloth, with rollers top and 
bottom, $15.00. 

Compiled from the latest Government surveys, and drawn to an accurate scale. 
Size, 100x56 inches; scale, 32 miles to one inch; borders of States and Counties 
beautifully tinted, colors being printed from plates secured by letters patent. This 
work has occupied two years in compilation and engraving, at a cost of nearly 
$20,000; plates have been carefully corrected to date, presenting the finest work of 
Art of its kind. This Map is deserving of special mention as being the first map 
of the United States made upon a geometrical projection since the war. 

Rand, McNally Sc Co/s New Railroad and County Map, extending 
from the Atlantic Coast to the Western Boundary of Colorado. 
Size, 70 x 56 inches, in colors, mounted upon heavy paper, rollers top and 
bottom (a section of our complete United States work) ; a map for the people at a 
popular price. Retail, $5.00; cloth, $8.00. 

Rand, McNally Sc Co/s New Railroad and County Map of the West- 
ern and Pacific Coast States and Territories, extending from tho 
Western boundary of Indiana to the Pacific Coast. 

Size, 66 x 56 inches, in colors, mounted upon heavy paper, rollers top and 
bottom (a section of our complete United States work). Retail, $5.00; mounted 
on cloth, $8.00. 

Rand, McNally Sc Co/s General Map of the Republic of Mexico. 

Constructed from the best authorities, showing the completed and proposed 
Railways, Steamship routes and telegraphic communications, etc. Size, 72 x 52 
inches; Price, mounted on rollers, varnished, $12.50; or, cut in sections and 
mounted on linen to fold in leather case, for portable use, $15.00. 

Rand, McNally Sc Co/s New Commercial Map of the United States 
and Canada. 

Showing all the Counties, Railroads and Principal Towns up to date. It is 
eminently adapted both for school and office purposes. Size, 68x41 inches; scale, 
about sixty miles to one inch. Price, mounted on rollers, on heavy paper, $2.00; 
mounted on rollers, with cloth back, $3.50. 

RAND, McNALLY & CO., Publishers, 

Chicago and N«w YobIk. 


“FEDORA;” 

OR 

The Tragedy in the Rne de la Paix 

BY 

ADOLPHE BELOT. 


This Great Detective Story is a translation of the celebra- 
ted Novel by Adolphe Be lot, called " Le Drame de la 
Rue de la Paix,” of which the main incidents 
are identical with Sardou’s Dramatic 
masterpiece "Fedora,” as 
performed by 

Sara Bernhardt 

AND 

Fanny Davenport. 


A most original, powerful and exciting French romance. 
Every character must have had its living model. For high dra- 
matic action, intense and thrilling interest and appalling climax, 
absolutely unsurpassed in modern fiction. 

It Is a work which places its author at once among the most brilliant and 
powerful novelists of his tim e.— Albany Sunday Press . 

Since the appearance of “Les Miserables,” nothing of French authorship 
has elicited such unstinted praise.— Newark (2V. J.) Call. 

“Fedora ” will be read because unregenerate human nature is bad. It is 
a French detective story, dealing, as all such stories do, with a mysterious 
murder, a sharp detective, an abandoned woman, and with intrigues, revela- 
tions and violent deaths .— Hartford Evening Post. 

The story is highly exciting, and contains numerous Tore scenes peculiar to 
Paris. There is a strength of diction and brilliancy ol* rhetoric peculiar to the 
eminent French novelists .— Newark Daily Journal. 

As a detective story “Fedora” deserves to rank with Poe’s “Murder of 
Marie Roget,” and Miss Harriet Prescott Spofford’s “In a Cellar.” It fully 
equals them in intricacy of plot and ingenuity of execution .— Chicago Tribune. 

The dramatization of “Fedora” has created a furore in Paris, and is re- 
garded as one of the gems of Madame Bernhardt’s repertoire. It is thoroughly 
French, and those who desire to read of crime ana debauchery will find an 
abundant feast in “ Fedora .”— Chicago Inter Ocean. 

The plot is remarkable in its dramatic handling, points of suspense, and in 
the art of baffling the reader. An inside view of the fast life in Paris, the 
ftourts of justice and the hidden ways of criminals, treated boldly and in full 
detail, but without coarseness or exaggeration .— Boston Globe. 


ONLY > FARMER'S DAUGHTER 


BY 


LILIAN HERBERT ANDREWS, 

Member op the New York Bar. 



CHICAGO: 

Rand, McNally & Company, Publishers, 

148, 150, 152 AND 154 MONROE STREET; tnd 
323 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 

1887 , 



* 



COLGATE & CO’S SPECIALTIES. 


TOILET SOAPS 

PERFUMERY 


Made with utmost care from the purest 
materials. 103 varieties for every taste 
and use. 

Handkerchief Extracts and ToiletWaters 
of exceptional delicacy and strength. 


TOILET ARTICLES True Bay Rum, Sachet Powders, and 
Rince Bouche an agreeable dentifrice. 


The name of Colgate Co. on each article assures the 
■purchaser of high and uniform quality . 


Copyright, 18 *7, by Baud, McNally & Co., Printer* and Publisher*, Chicago . 

✓ . _ _ 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


CHAPTER 1. 

“ There was an old woman that lived in her 
shoe. Hi-yi ! hi-yi ! hi-yi ! ” 

The old woman turned in a fit of senile petu- 
lance and glowered at the half-dozen urchins 
shouting at her heels. 

“ Say, Billy, jes’ think of a shoe with old 
Mother Bush’s nose scragglin’ outer the top of 
it ! Ki-yi ! ” 

And the boy put his hands on the top of a 
fire hydrant, and turned a somersault over it. 
The other gamin stood on the curb with legs 
wide stretched apart and hands in his trousers’ 
pockets— or rather, through the slit in the side 
of the legs, where the pockets had been when 
the trousers were owned by Billy’s elder 
brother. He cocked his head on one side and 
stared at the old woman, licking his chops as 
though over some delicate morsel. 


6 ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 

“ O my, ain’t I handsome ! ” ejaculated 
Billy. 

“ There was an old woman that lived in 
her—” 

“ Cheese it, Tommy, de cop’s a-comin’.” 

Like a flock of partridges they flapped their 
wings, and in the time that elapsed between 
the first glimpse of Roundsman Moloney’s 
nose from around the corner, and the glitter of 
the brass buttons on his blue coat-tails, every 
boy had vanished into the air. 

“ Ivery mother’s son o’ them gon’ ! An’, be 
all the powers, w’ere do the little divvils betake 
themselves w’en Michael Moloney do beafther 
thim wid a shtick ? ” 

The old woman stood leaning against the 
wall of the saloon. Moloney brushed his big 
frame so near her, and she was so frail, that 
the very breeze of his motion seemed to carry 
her along, and she clung to the wall for sup- 
port. 

“ An’ it be you thim little blaggards is a- 
shoutin’ at, Mother Bush ! Sure an’ the likes 
o’ ye ’ud better be shtayin’ be yer own shtove, 
a-warmin’ yer thin fingers, than shiverin’ outen 
the Avenyi wid a lot o’ thim bloomin’ dirty little 
blaggards a-chasin’ yez all over into’irjely..’’ . 

The old woman stared vacantly at the ’officer 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


7 


and trembled from head to foot, as she rubbed 
her bony hands together. Her lips were parted, 
bringing into hideous prominence the sole re- 
maining pair of teeth in her possession — one 
upper and one lower, in opposite corners of her 
mouth. The two teeth chattered — or would 
have chattered had there been anything for 
them to chatter on. The old withered lips were 
so like the parchment of a drumhead, that they 
seemed to be having a tattoo beaten on them by 
the two drumsticks. 

“ An’, be the great an wonderful Mowses, 
Mother Bush, if I didn’t know ye fur a har-rm- 
less old widdy woman, I’d be sayin’ that ye 
were not shiverin wid the cold, but quakin’ at 
the sight o’ the cop. Ha-ha-ha! ” 

“Ha! ha! ha! ha!” 

What a ghostly cackle in reply to the great 
stout guffaw of Roundsman Moloney ! It was 
like the wiry rattle of a puppet in the grasp of 
a ventriloquist, or a voice heard through a 
telephone. 

“ Be jabers, now, Mother Bush, laugh quite 
hearty now ! Laugh away down in your boots.” 

“ Ha-ha-ha ! Ha-ha-ha ! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha” cack- 
led the old woman, as she turned away. She 
began the laugh as though under effort, and 
then kept it up from sheer inertia, until it died 


s 


OFLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


away into the echo of a laugh that might have 
begun somewhere in the dark ages, when she 
was young enough to be Moloney’s grand- 
mother. 

She was just beginning to toddle along, as the 
policemen laid his hand jokingly on her shoulder, 
when the blue-coated arm was thrust aside, and 
a young woman rushed in between them. 

“ Ah, good avenin' Miss, beggin’ yer par-r- 
don!” 

“ You needn't beg my pardon. Let the old 
woman alone. Here, mother, come out of this.” 

Whereupon she took the old woman under 
the shoulder and almost carried her, so rapidly 
did she hurry her down the Avenue. The old 
woman nearly stumbled over the tatters of her 
gown, as she turned around once and again, 
arid looked with apprehension toward the police- 
man. But he stood very harmlessly on the 
pavement where they had left him, watching 
them till they turned down a side street, when 
he whirled his club around his arm by the red 
tassels, and went off to think about something 
else. 

“ Mother Bush, don’t let me ever again see 
you looking at a policeman as if you thought he 
was going to march you down to Jefferson 
Market.” 


ONLY A PALMER’ 8 LAUGHTER. 9 

“ Is he coming after us ? ” trembled through 
the old woman’s lips, as she struggled to look 
behind her again- 

“ No, he’s not. But he will be, if you cling 
to the side of the house and go into a tremble 
every time you get an eye on him.” 

“ Ah, dearie, you are not enough afraid of ’em. 
We’ve not been doing this business all these 
years, and nobody to know or suspect anything.” 

“ Whish-h-h ! Mother Bush, if you don’t 
want to get into trouble, talk about such mat- 
ters when we’re in the house.” 

They had reached a quiet part of 2 — th Street, 
a little to the west of Sixth Avenue. Most of 
the surrounding houses were of doubtful rep- 
utation- An occasional gas-jet flared faintly on 
various old carts backed up for the night against 
the sidewalk. A foot-pad might easily have 
lain among their wheels until you had gone 
past, and then felled you with a sand-bag. 

The two women stopped before a gate that 
opened into a sort of tunnel under and between 
two houses. It was ajar an inch or two, and 
yielded readily as they pushed against it. 

They then groped their way through the long, 
unlighted passage, until they came into a court- 
yard in which stood a second house. 

These rear houses abound in many of the 


10 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


cheaper quarters of New York. They are of a 
type similar to that of the front houses, only worse 
of the kind. If the front house is out of repair, 
the rear is tumbling into ruin. If the front is 
full of drunken men, the rear howls with deliri- 
um tremens. If the sewer-gas escapes through 
bad plumbing in the front house^ the inhabi- 
tants in the rear have no plumbing whatever, 
and empty their refuse in the yard. If thieves 
dwell in front, in the rear is food for the gal- 
lows. 

The house on the street under which was 
tunnelled this unlighted passage, was sus- 
pected by the police as a harbor of stolen goods. 
The two. women groped along without speaking 
a word, until they stood in the court-yard. 

The main door of the rear house was open, 
as was evident from one feeble, tiny flame of 
gas in the hall. Except for the unbroken dark- 
ness around it, the gas-flame could scarcely 
have been discovered. 

It was a very silent house. No one spoke or 
made a sound as the two women moved through 
the hall and clambered up the rickety staircase. 
Only a few steps at a time ; then came a land- 
ing with doors into tenements. Then another 
sharp turn, up to the next flight. But the two 
women turned, and turned, and turned, without 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. lj 

ever bumping against the wall. They must 
have been familiar with this journey up through 
the darkness. 

At last they came to the top floor, and turn- 
ed a creaky key in a lock which seemed so 
frightened by the universal silence, that it fairly 
shrieked at the sound of its own voice. 

“ Wait there, mother. You’ll fall down and 
smash something if you stir before I strike a 
light.” 

As the flame of the match softened the tal- 
low and gradually persuaded the wick to con- 
sent to its own destruction, the face of the young 
woman became a study. 

At first there was only a vague form cower- 
ing over a burning match. Then as a cloud of 
long hair broke loose and floated over her 
shoulders, she flung it back with a gesture of 
impatience, and with it her cloak, disclosing a 
graceful and comely arm. Then there was 
only a strong face bent over a candle. But as 
the wick spluttered, and finally swelled out in- 
to a cone of flame, the face beamed out of the 
darkness and revealed a pair of full red lips, a 
■|traight nose with nostrils wide at the base, and 
two eyes so black that they shone like black 
diamonds in the dancing light. 

The old woman rubbed her hands as she 
stood by the door. 


12 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ Beautiful, dearie ; beautiful ! Those black 
eyes and the long midnight hair would be a 
mint of money, rightly used, dearie — rightly 
used, rightly used, rightly used.” 

The young woman flung a savage look in 
her face. 

“ Mother Bush, if you stand there wringing 
your hands, and mumbling your jaws, and glar- 
ing as if you would eat me, I'll ” 

Here she drew herself slowly up to her full 
height, which could not have been less than five 
feet seven, extended her long white arm from 
which the shawl had fallen, parted her lips as 
though to hiss, and ejaculated, while her fingers 
seemed to close around the old woman’s throat, 

“ Kill you ! ” 

“ Bravo, Katie ! Bravissimo ! Katie, dearie — ” 

Here the old woman slunk along toward her, 
like some four-footed animal, as though about 
to spring at her, and said : 

“ Katie, there is money in those eyes ; a 
hundred times more than in all this room be- 
sides.” 

“ Mother Bush, if you were not my mother, 
I’d fell you to the floor!” 

The old woman started back, as though she 
expected Katie to forget the filial relationship; 
And she smiled that deprecatory, wheedling 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


13 


Smile of fear used by one who is weaker than 
another. 

“ To think, Mother Bush, that you — you — 
could ever have been my mother. Not a day 
beyond twenty-five years am I old, and you are 
like some old gipsy hag of ninety. Beauti- 
ful ? Of course I am beautiful ! If I were the 
daughter of an empress, the whole round world 
would rave over my beauty. But I’m only 
Mother Bush’s daughter, and the few that ever 
notice my beauty in these old rags, insult me. 
Ugh-h-h ! ” 

“ Don’t get excited, dearie, dearie. Don’t 
take offense at the old woman, dearie. Mother 
Bush wishes you well. Mother Bush is old 
now, and has nobody else to care for. And 
there is lots of money in all these things, dearie ; 
lots of money, money, dearie, money, money, 
money.” 

The old woman edged her way up to the 
table where the candle stood, and then began a 
series of developments which proved her a walk- 
ing storehouse. 

First she unbuttoned her cloak, and as she 
swung it wide, it turned into a closet. A series 
of hooks ran all around the inside of it — hooks 
that shut with a clasp, so that articles once hung 
on them could never work themselves loose. 


14 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

Most of these hooks were weighted with arti- 
cles of clothing, which the old woman slowly 
unfastened and heaped on the table. Dainty 
handkerchiefs, some of them marked with em- 
broidered initials ; two pairs of beautiful long 
black silk stockings ; three or four little shawls 
for the shoulders ; three watches, one of them 
with a valuable seal on a chain of gold : all 
these strangely associated valuables the old 
woman assorted on the table as she unhooked 
them, one by one, from her cloak. 

“ Great mistake, dearie, to mark names on 
handkerchiefs. All these beautiful letters must 
be picked out. Strange, people will be so un- 
accommodating.” 

“ I don’t wonder you were afraid Moloney 
would touch you, mother. Suppose he had 
given that cloak a lift ! ” 

The old woman looked frightened and her 
teeth chattered again on her parchment lips ; but 
half in delight at her escape, and half in delight at 
seeing Katie once more look pleased, she laugh- 
ed too — the same old, rattling cackle, that was 
the only laugh she had brought down with her 
out of her young days. 

Then Katie’s face darkened again. 

“ And it’s because of this life that I, who 
ought to be a queen, am worse than a ragpicker’s 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


15 


daughter. Curses on these slow ways of mak- 
ing money ! ” 

“ Slow, dearie ? slow ? slow ? ” 

The old woman gazed inquiringly at Katie, 
and then at the piles of valuables on the tables, 
and then back to Katie. 

“ Slow, Katie ? Here, count them all up. 
Wait a moment, dearie, dearie. Wait a mo- 
ment, moment, moment, dearie, Katie dearie.” 

Mumbling these words, Mother Bush hobbled 
over to the wall, and rummaged about in a little 
closet, which was no more than a hole in the 
wall, with a shelf in it. With many a grunt 
and cackle, she tumbled over little cups, and 
tin basins, and bundles of rags, and a world of 
cast-off, useless rubbish, until, with a grunt 
somewhat louder than the rest, she tugged forth 
the remains of an old shawl, which she brought 
to the table. 

“ There, dearie, there, there, there ! ” 

She unfolded the musty bundle, and tumbled 
out a dozen greasy and broken-covered bank- 
books. 

There, dearie Katie, dearie; there they all 
are : the Bleecker Street book, and the Dry 
Dock book, and the Bowery book, and the Green- 
wich book, and the Emigrant Savings book, 
and the Seaman’s Bank book, and all the rest 


16 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


of ’em- There they all are, dearie ; and there’s 
gold in every one of ’em ; gold, gold, gold, dearie, 
Katie dearie, gold ! ” 

Mother Bush chattered away in a submissive, 
wheedling tone, seeming almost to be talking to 
herself rather than to Katie ; for she never look- 
ed up, but went on turning the books over, read- 
ing the names on the outside of them, and 
muttering in a low monotone. The younger 
woman regarded her not, but stood in the same 
position as before, gazing with a look of con- 
tempt at the heap of handkerchiefs, stockings, 
jew’elry and what not on the table. Her hands 
were clenched ; she seemed endeavoring to re- 
strain herself from doing some violence that she 
longed to do, yet despised herself for wanting 
to do. The old hag went on caressing the 
bank-books. 

“ Gold, dearie, Katie dearie ; gold, gold. 
Dearie said the money came slow. So it has 
come slow, dearie. It began to come before you 
were born, long years before you were born. 
And it came very slow then. But I put it all 
in the banks, and now it comes faster and fas- 
ter. Long years, dearie ; and the police never 
caught Mother Bush yet — never caught Mother 
Bush, — Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha ! ” 

“ Mother ! ” 


ONL Y A FARMER’ 8 1)A U OUTER, IT 

The girl laid her hand on the old woman’s 
arm, and tightened the fingers till she shrunk 
away. 

“ Katie, dearie, that hurts, dearie. Don’t, 
dearie ! ” 

“ Then, tell me, quick — how much is there 
in all these piles of Savings’ Bank books.” 

“ Wait, dearie. I’ll figure them up, dearie. 
Wait, now ; wait, wait, wait. Bieecker Street, 
two thousand three hundred and seven, ninety- 
six ; Emigrant, fourteen-hundred and — ” 

The voice sank into a whisper, till it seemed 
only one long breathing and snorting, as she 
became lost to her surroundings. She was a 
hideous sight ; covered with rags, yet gloating 
over possessions that to her were wealth. 

“ No, dearie, there’s not so very much after 
all — considering the long years of hard work 
which we’ve had to go through to get it all. 
Not so much, dearie, not so much, not so much.” 

“ How much — quick ? ” 

Katie made a motion as though to seize the 
books and make the computation for herself. 
But the long, gaunt arms were stretched over 
them like the claws of a vulture clutching its 
dead prey. 

“No, dearie; don’t be in a hurry; I’ll tell 
you in a minute, dearie ; I’ll tell you, tell you, 


18 


ONLY A FARMERS DAUGHTER. 


tell you. Yes, dearie, there isn't very much — 
only thirteen thousand, five hundred and seven- 
teen dollars and forty-three cents, dearie, forty- 
three cents, forty-three cents.” 

“ Then I reckon about seven thousand ’ll do . 
fer me. I ain’t no hog, yer know, to take more’n 
half away fr’m two innercent faymales.” 

Katie screamed at the sound of the heavy 
voice. Mother Bush was so terrified that when 
she tried to scream, as she lay over the table 
striving to cover the books with her apron, she 
could only hiss. 

“Yer don’t seem delighted with the sight 
o’ yer pal.” 

“ O, Sam, is that you ? Why ever did you 
come in so silently, and frighten us here all 
alone ? ” 

“ Aw, now, ye hadn’t oughter be frightened 
long o’ me, Katie. Why I’ve knowed you ever 
since we was three foot high, and used to dance 
around in the old garret down in MacDougal 
Street, and pick each other’s pockets, while the 
old woman give us p’ints. Hey, Mother Bush ? ” 

“ Yes, Sammie, Sammie, oh yes, Sammie. 
We’re not afraid of you, Sammie.” 

“ Now there’s a good girl, Katie ; why don’t 
you ask me to make myself to home.” 

Whereupon the young Samuel made himself 


ONLY A PALMER'S DAUGHTER. 


id 


at home by sitting astride the table and chuck- 
ing Katie under the chin. She instantly re- 
torted by slapping his face. 

“ Oh, now, Katie, yer shouldn’t do that.” 

“ I know it. That was a rather dirty thing 
for me to do.” 

She wiped her hand in the folds of her dress. 

“You’n I oughter pair off, Katie. Say, 
Mother Bush, will ye give ’er to me ? I’m a 
likely cove. Can’t haul out the watches an’ 
handkerchiefs like you kin ; but, say, now, I be 
jest about the best feller in town to rope in the 
country gem’n from Hard Scrabble and take 
him ’roun’ the corner fur a real cosy chat about 
his son ’t I use ter know so well ter school. 
An’ w’en the old cove is well lickered up an’ 
begins to wonder how ’tis he never remember- 
ed me afore, we gets oncommon confidential 
an’ w’en he wakes up he ain’t got no money to 
go home ter Hard Scrabble, and the friend of 
his boy ’s jest gone aroun’ the corner ’thout 
leavin’ his address. Ha-ha!” 

Whereat young Samuel slapped the leg of 
his trousers to rattle the coins. 

“ So thout any jokin’, Mother Bush, I mean 
it w’en I say that Katie ’n me, that knows each 
other so well, oughter jine forces. Let’s go ter 
the priest to-night, Katie.” 


20 


ONLY A F Alt MSB’S DA UGHTER. 


Her only reply was a glance that expressed 
more proud contempt than words could utter. 

“ Aw, now, Katie, don’t be thinkin’ about 
him. I know all about that. He’ll never care 
any more about ye. An’ he ain’t worth carin’ 
no more about neither, and won’t be, if he gets 
out.” 

Katie advanced a step and lifted her hand as 
though to strike. Samuel dodged around the 
other side of the table. 

“ Don’t you dare mention yourself in the 
same breath with him, Sam Lavake. He 
was no pickpocket, nor common thief or 
swindler.” 

“ No, he wa’n’t. An’ if he’d aimed a little 
straighter, Miss Katie, ’nstead o’ walkin’ round 
in a striped jacket up the river, his soul ’ud 
a walked right up inter glory, outer the Tombs 
yard.” 

“ A great criminal is a man I can respect ; 
but you — pah ! ” 

“ You think a heap o’ him jest because he 
didn’t care a copper cent fer you. An’ if he 
was out o’ Sing Sing he’d kill you for half the 
books Mother Bush is mutterin’ over.” 

Katie’s eyes glared with a new and savage 
light, as she looked at her mother, following 
Sam’s gesture. Sam watched her motions. 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


21 


“ Hanged ef I don’t think you’d kill her yer- 
self, fer a small consideration ! ” 

“ I’d kill anybody, if he came back and asked 
me to. There’s no crime I wouldn’t commit 
— for him. But you — get out of here, Sam 
Lavake! A common thief !” 

“ Wall, s’pose you think the ole woman’s an 
oncommon thief. An’ it is mighty oncommon 
to lay by thirteen thousand dollars outer pocket 
pickin’. Better kill the ole woman, Kate. 
Make more money in that way ’n yer ever will 
in any other — that is, so long as yer wait fer 
the Sing Sing feller, an’ let all the profitable 
chances go by. By the way, his time’s up this 
mornin’. Better kill the ole woman now an’ 
get the money all ready to run off with, ef he 
should come back in the mornin’.” 

Katie stood looking out of her black eyes at 
the old woman, seeming not to hear a word that 
was addressed to her. 

“ Wall, I’ll be goin’ ! ” 

“ Don’t go, Sammie, Sammie,” chattered 
Mother Bush. “ Don’t go, there’s a good boy. 
Stay with old Mother Bush. Old Mother Bush 
needs you here. It’s a lonesome, quiet place, 
and we need you to enliven the evening, Sam- 
mie. Don’t go, Sammie, Sammie.” 

Katie stood motionless, 


22 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 


“ Why, Mother Bush,” said Sam, “ yer ain’t 
afeard to be left alone with this young lady, be 
yer ? ’Cause she has got long fingers, ye know 
an’ if she made up her mind to put ’em ’round 
yer throat — Lordy massy on ye, Mother 
Bush.” 

He turned with a leer toward Katie. She 
stood motionless, as before. Mother Bush 
laughed a nervous laugh, and clutched her bank 
books tighter, as her gray eyes vibrated between 
Sam and Katie. 

“ Nobody ’d ever know it, Katie. They’d say 
she died er old age. Sort o’ dried up, so to 
speak, and cracked to pieces.” 

“ Don’t say such horrible things, Sammie, 
Sammie ! You say all these terrible things, 
just as though they were real, Sammie, dear. 
The old woman isn’t as strong as she used to 
be. She’s nervous, Sammie, and she doesn’t 
like to hear you talk about such awful things. 
Sammie, at the top of a house, on a lonely even- 
ing, when there’s nobody within call, Sammie. 
Don’t, Sammie ! Don’t, Sammie ! ” 

“ Leave the room, Sam Lavake ! ” 

It was the first time Katie had spoken, in 
several minutes. She uttered the words in a 
low, deep tone that would have done credit to a 
tragedy queen. But she never turned. She 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 23 

kept her eyes fixed on the old woman, as Sam 
closed the door behind him. 

“ Thirteen thousand dollars,” said Kate, as 
though talking to herself, albeit she never look- 
ed away from Mother Bush as she spoke. 

“ Yes, dearie ; thirteen thousand, five hundred 
and seventeen, forty-three cents. And I’m 
going to leave it all to you, Katie, when I am 
gone — all to you.” 

“ But the deposits are all in your name.” 

“ Yes, dearie, all in my name, all in my name. 
But whoever presents the pass-book, dearie, 
will get all the money ; and it doesn’t matter 
in whose name it is.” 

Suppose you were dead to-morrow, could I 
go to the banks and get all that money ? ” 

Katie, dearie, dearie, dont look at me so. 
Katie. Don’t look at your poor old grandma so, 
Yes, I am your grandma, though you never 
knew it before, I always let you think that I was 
your mother, because I couldn’t bear to have you 
ask about her. She died when you were born, 
Katie dearie, and she was all I had to lose in 
the world besides these dear little books, Katie. 
And she died when you were born. She had 
the same eyes. But don’t look at me so, Kate.” 

The young woman had come nearer, and was 
sitting on the table with her hands entwined 


24 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


across her knee. Mother Bush cowered in the 
corner, clutching the bank-books all the while, 
and seemed to shrink within herself, as though 
she hoped, by becoming small, to escape ob- 
servation. 

“ So you are not my mother ! — all the more 
reason why you don’t deserve to live. Jim 
comes out of Sing Sing to-day. — All the more 
reason why that money would be useful to- 
morrow.” 

“ Don’t talk so, Katie dearie. Don’t look at 
me so, dearie, dearie. Don’t look at me so — look 
at me so ! ” 

“ Money is your god. Why shouldn’t it be 
mine ? With all that money we might start 
for the West to-morrow night. We might be a 
gentleman and lady. We might lead honest 
lives.” 

“ I sha’n’t live long, dearie. Then you shall 
have it all, all, all.” 

“ Thirteen thousand dollars the first day out 
of Sing Sing ! Why, that would be more than 
thirteen million dollars a week hence. Then the 
old associations will have got their grip on him. 
Now, he is free. I could do anything for him — 
anything ! ” 

“ Katie, Katie, don’t! Don’t touch me. I will 
give you money. You shall go and leave your 
poor old grandma, if you will.” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 25 

“ He will want it all.” 

A tall figure with close-cropped hair had 
stolen into the room during this conversation. 
His lips parted as he murmured, but not loud 
enough to be heard — “ All ! ” 

“ O, Katie, O-o-o ! ” 

There was a gurgling sound, a heavy gasping 
for breath, the overturning of a table. 

Katie gathered the bank-books in her arms. 
She screamed in horror as a hand came down 
on her shoulder. 

“ Jim ! ” 

“ How much ? ” 

“ Thirteen thousand dollars, — yours.” 

And she swooned away. 


26 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


CHAPTER II. 

Of all the countries in the world, it may safe- 
ly be said that none can show a worse climate 
than the little State of Massachusetts — at cer- 
tain seasons of the year. The cold of the arc- 
tics, the heat of the tropics, and the mud of all 
creation, here revel, each in its appropriate time. 

But there are times between times, when Italy 
itself could boast nothing fairer. Massachusetts 
is like a beautiful woman — very much more beau- 
tiful at some times than at others. 

In the autumn, after the leaves have just 
made up their minds to turn, and have scarcely 
begun turning ; when the nights are cold, the 
mornings brisk and the daytimes balmy ; noth- 
ing could be more delicious. A farm-house, 
then, peering dimly out through the leaves that 
are soon to carpet the lawn in front of it, is sug- 
gestive of beatific repose — unless you live in the 
farm-house and have bitterly learned that the 
only rest within a mile is the hill-side where 
each occupant has his little home with a white 
stone at one end. 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 27 

It was in the autumn, in the State of Massachu- 
setts, before one of these peaceful farm-houses, 
with the autumn leaves quivering, and occasion- 
ally falling around it. The dusty road was 
dustier than ever, with all the dust of a long, 
hot summer accumulated in it and blown around 
it, whitening the walls and fences, dulling the 
green of the grass, choking the lungs of every 
unfortunate being that had to travel through it. 

Up the long, dusty road, toward the farm- 
house, came a solitary pedestrian. He had in 
one hand a bag covered with glazed leather, the 
cracks of which had filled with dust which ex- 
hibited all their poverty the more conspicuously. 
In the other hand he grasped a stout cane. A 
solitary traveler, indeed, with little baggage : — 
A traveler on a road very like that of life itself 
— dirty and crooked, coming, no man could say 
whence, winding on, no man could say whither. 

Nightfall w r as approaching. The farm-house 
was near. The pedestrian was footsore and 
weary. Should he enter the farm-house ? 
Many a destiny has turned on a simpler question. 

Yes, he was very weary. That must have 
been, or he would not have stopped by the way 
and thrown himself on the grass, powdered as it 
was with dust. For he was a cleanly, almost deli- 
cate man. His hands were slender, and as he 


28 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


looked ruefully at them he saw that carrying the 
bag had raised blisters on one of them. And it 
was not a heavy bag. 

He looked up at the trees, and seemed so 
lost in a dreamy contemplation that the farmer 
who rattled by in his wagon thought him asleep. 
But he was not asleep, for his eyes dropped out 
of the tree-tops as soon as the wagon had gone 
by, and he seemed to derive pleasure from watch- 
ing the immense brim of the farmer’s straw hat 
flop up and down, like the wings of some big 
bird, as the wheels bounced over one stone after 
another. 

As the farmer turned his team up a lane to- 
ward the farm-house, the wayfarer arose and 
tramped after him. 

“ Mother,” shouted Farmer Taft, from the 
piazza, “ Mother, Mother ! ” 

“ Yes, Isaac, what is it ? ” 

“ Wall, you see this ’ere young man ? ” 

The stranger removed his hat. A young, 
delicate face, a trifle too thin perhaps. There is 
an emaciation of feature that comes of insuffi- 
cient food for the body, and an emaciation that 
comes of too much food for the mind. The 
young man’s face had touches of both kinds, as 
he bowed gracefully to Mrs.Taft. 

Mrs. Taft wiped her hands on her apron and 


ONL Y A FARMER’ 8 DA UGI1TER. 29 

was much impressed by the respectful gallantry 
of the yo'Cfng man. 

“ Mother, this young chap wants to stay with 
us a few days. Says he would like to stop, if 
so be as there’s any room.” 

Mrs. Taft looked the various questions which 
she did not ask. 

“ I should, indeed, like to remain a few days, 
madam. I am writing a book, and for certain 
purposes desire very much to spend a week or 
so in the real country.” 

A book ! Mrs. Taft had read books and 
never entertained any serious question that 
they must have been written by some superior 
race of human beings. And was this one of 
them ? She looked at him with curiosity and 
awe. 

“ I will cheerfully pay for any accommoda- 
tion that can be furnished. And I am not at 
all particular,” said he hastily ; for he thought 
he saw symptoms of reluctance in Mrs. Taft’s 
face. “ I shall be perfectly content with any- 
thing. I have a real desire to spend a few days 
on a farm.” 

Mrs. Taft looked at her husband. He looked 
at Mrs. Taft. Then they both looked at the 
young man, and looked embarrassed. 

“ You will let me stay, won’t you ? ” 


30 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

“ There’s the spare-room, mother. There 
won’t be nobody to sleep in it for a month.” 

“ But the gentleman — ” 

“ I am sure I should be delighted, madam. 
Don’t put yourself out in the least for me. Let 
me come on the same terms as any one else — 
I will fall into the ways of the house and take 
my meals with the rest. And I understand you 
do have quite early breakfasts in the country.” 

“ Wall, now, friend, what would you call an 
early breakfast ? ” 

“ I’m sure I don’t know ; but I presume you 
breakfast before eight o’clock.” 

Mrs. Taft was too much overawed to smile ; 
but her husband burst out into a very audible 
sound of amusement, while the young man 
showed signs of embarrassment. 

“ Why, Lord bless yer soul ! we think we’re 
late if mother don’t begin to wash up the dishes 
by six o’clock ! But what shall we say, mother, 
about letting the gentleman stay ? ” 

“ If you think you could fall into our ways, 
sir, and be comfortable for a few days, I’ve no 
doubt we could make room for you.” 

“ Oh, thank you, a thousand times, my dear 
Mrs.—” 

“ Taft.” 

“ Mrs,;. Taft; my name is Stuart — Henry 
Stuart.” 


ONLY A FABMfiB'S DAUGfiffiB. 31 

“ Come right in, Mr. Stuart. Father, get the 
broom and dust off the gentleman’s bag. 

“ And, Mrs. Taft, I am very tired to-night 
and might want to rest in the morning. Would 
you mind it very much if I did not get up to 
breakfast ? ” 

“Never mind at all about getting up, Mr. 
Stuart. You do look real tired, and must have 
come a long way.” 

It was nine o’clock next morning before the 
sun peeping through the shutters got a suffi- 
ciently strong grasp on young Stuart’s eyes to 
pull them open. 

He lay on the bed for some moments trying 
to remember where he was. Then it all came 
back to him as he heard the dash — dash — dash 
of a churn, and saw his dusty shoes in the cor- 
ner where he had pulled them off the night 
before. 

Hastily dressing, he pushed open the door 
and found himself in the big room which appar- 
ently answered the uses of parlor, sitting-room, 
and dining-room. 

There, on a little table was a snowy cloth 
laid with breakfast dishes for one. Evidently 
they had counted on his waking some time be- 
fore noon, and meant to be ready for him. 
Quaint old dishes they were, on which men, 


32 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

houses, trees, and mountains were fainted, all 
of a size, and in impossible colors. 

“ How nice of them to imagine I would like 
to begin the day with a drink of milk.” 

He poured out a glass, so rich with cream 
that its color was almost golden. 

The sun filtered his way through the blinds 
and set the prisms around the big kerosene 
lamp sparkling like so many precious stones. 
This experimenter in farm life must have been 
fonder of ideas than of food ; for he turned away 
from the golden milk to watch the prisms dance 
in the sunlight. 

Then his eyes wandered about the room. It 
was a homely room — homely in the sense of 
being a home to somebody. No luxury, — only 
delightful, attractive. The cane-bottomed 
chairs could not have cost very much, but they 
were hollowed out in such comfortable shapes 
that very contented people must have been 
wont to sit in them. 

The pictures were not works of art — they 
were not even good engravings. But the scenes 
were pleasant in their way, and left a satisfied 
feeling in the mind of Stuart as he looked at 
them ; though he couldn’t have told the next 
day what any one of them represented. 

“ All this peace-inspiring atmosphere comes 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


33 


not out of the articles in the room,” said he ; 
“there must be some mesmeric power imparted 
by somebody who put them there or who brushes 
the dust off. Can it be Mrs. Taft ? ” 

Stuart, having by this time taken in the cir- 
cuit of the room, brought his attention once 
more around to the white table-cloth, and the 
milk, and the breakfast dishes. 

“ They can’t expect me to breakfast on milk. 
They must be expecting me to make some 
noise when I am up. I will wait and see if 
they come in.” 

At this moment there was a heavy tramp on 
the piazza, and a hearty voice called “ Mother ! ” 

“ Farmer Taft, surely,” said Stuart to the milk- 
pitcher. 

“ Wall, stranger ! be you jest up ? ” 

“ I am, indeed, rather late this morning, Mr. 
Taft. I was tire’d and took the morning to 
sleep in.” 

“ That’s right. I told mother to be mighty 
kerful ’bout makin’ any noise in front o’ the spar’ 
bedroom door, an’ I guess she was kerful. I jest 
come up to the house to sharpen a scythe. Pretty 
late mowing; but I had a leetle work to do 
aroun’ the fences. 

“ I’ve a notion to go out and see you mow.” 

“ Wall, now ; have ye ? You won’t find it no 

3 


84 ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 

great fun. That’s just the way Emily used to 
do. Use’ to go an’ set by the hour on a stump 
an’ watch me go roun’ an’ roun’ with the 
scythe. Leastways, she sot on the stump when 
shewa’n’t nowheres else ; fershewas an uneasy 
thing. Though, mebbe you aint seen Emily ? ” 

“ I don’t, think I have. Who is Emily, might 
I ask ? ” 

“ Wall, now. Beats all ! But I thought you 
must ha’ seen Emily last night. Why, friend, 
Emily is my darter ; an’ there aint a handsom- 
er, homeliker, trimmer, sweeter, real nice little 
girl in all Berkshire County — if I do say it that 
hadn’t oughter.” 

“ She lives with you ? ” 

“ Lives with me ! Wall, now, where should 
she ever live, if she didn’t live right here along 
o’ pie ? Lemme trot her in here an’ show ’er 
up to ye. Em’ly ! Em’ly 1 ” 

“ Don’t embarrass her by calling her now.” 

“ Embarrass her ! The only way to embar- 
rass her is to keep her where she can’t see her 
old pa, Em’ly, I say, Em’ly !” 

“ Yes, papa.” 

But she stopped short in rosy alarm as she 
was on the point of flinging her arms around 
the old man’s neck. She saw young Henry 
Stuart and glanced timidly away from him to- 
ward her father. 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


35 


“ Bless you, darlin’, don’t be startled so. This 
is the gentleman that come last night to stay 
a few days, Mr. — Stuart.” 

Mutual bows, and still more rosy flushes, 
which extended all over the young face. Thus 
do the early sunbeams scatter gold over the sur- 
face of the whole earth, and awaken life that 
never dies. 


36 


ONLY A FARMERS DAUGHTER. 


CHAPTER III. 

The jugglers of India do some wonderful 
things that no scientific eye has ever yet been 
able to see into the bottom of. Among their 
quasi-miracles is one that begins with implant- 
ing a seed in moist earth. You can examine 
the seed beforehand. It is a plain, ordinary 
seed, capable of growing into some sort of plant, 
probably in three or four months. 

They imprison it in a warm, moist clod. A 
moment hence appears a green shoot on the sur- 
face of the ground. It grows with perceptible 
motion, till before you have drawn many wonder- 
ing breaths, it stands before you a perfect plant. 

Is it some wonderful seed, unlike those with 
which the world is acquainted ? Or have these 
jugglers cognizance of certain natural laws 
that the solemn professors in Western climes 
have not discovered ? Or do they throw their 
small audiences into a sort of mesmeric con- 
dition, and make them imagine they see all these 
curious things, when in reality they see nothing? 

One thing is not to be disputed — strange and 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 


37 


mighty evolutions may come in brief bits of 
time. There are unfoldings so enchantingly 
rapid, that all sense of time is blotted. A thou- 
sand years is as one day — one day as a thousand 
years. 

Henry Stuart had lived a week in the old 
farm-house among the Berkshire Hills. At 
his coming he intended to stay three or four 
days. 

The first afternoon he sat out under the trees 
on the grass. An occasional leaf floated down 
and hugged itself close to him, as though de- 
termined to find what he was about. As he 
wrote rapidly with one of half-a-dozen pencils, 
and as one sheet after another tumbled over and 
fell ripe among the ripe leaves, his pale face 
would have been attractive to any passer-by. 
It became attractive to a mooley-cow that watch- 
ed him phlegmatically for a while, until curfosity 
got the better of diffidence. 

The cow sidled around, getting constantly a 
little nearer, — very like a moth circling around 
a lamp, if so lumbering a creature as a mooley- 
cow can be compared to a nimble and restless 
insect. 

She got, finally, a sudden access of boldness. 
Coming around behind the tree, she suddenly 
put her cold nose against the author’s neck and 


38 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

breathed once with such energy as to send the 
leaves of manuscript flying as though they had 
at least a pair of wings apiece. 

A bubble of laughter greeted the consterna- 
tion with which Henry Stuart sprang to his 
feet, and the more than consternation with 
which the mooley-cow leaned on her two front 
feet, and stared at him and at the manuscript. 

“ Excuse me, Mr. Stuart. I did not mean to 
laugh. But when the dear, old mooley drew 
that long sigh I could not help it. I really 
could not.” 

“ No harm done, Miss Taft. I have only to 
put the pieces together again.” 

“ Oh, let me help you.” 

The two bent their heads over the fallen 
leaves and gathered the pieces of manuscript. 
What wonder that their heads bumped once 
together, to their mutual embarrassment, or 
that Miss Taft slipped on a broken root of the 
tree and would have fallen if he had not caught 
her ? 

But they got all the pieces together and sat 
down side by side to arrange them. 

“ So you are a great author, Mr. Stuart ?” 

“ Not great, Miss Taft. At least, if I bei 
nobody but myself has found it out.” 

“ Oh, but they will find it out.” 


ONLY A FARMS IV S DAUGHTER. 


39 


“ Perhaps.” 

“ And have you written many beautiful 
things ? ” 

“ You embarrass me.” 

“ Why ? ” 

“ You assume that I must have written many 
beautiful things.” 

“ They must have been beautiful.” 

She looked up at the same instant that he 
looked down. There was no reason why either 
should feel ill at ease. Yet they both grew red 
in the face. Why do people always blush when 
they don't want to — most of all when there is 
no reason why they should? ” 

“ Thank you,” said he. 

Whereat she blushed more vigorously than 
ever. 

“ I’m sure you could not write stupid, heavy 
things,” said she. 

“ No ? ” 

“ Sermons, for instance.” 

“ Don’t you like sermons ? ” 

“ Not such sermons as Parson Toole preaches. 
And I’ve scarcely heard any one else. They 
last very, very long, and have so very, very 
many ‘ heads,’ as papa calls them, that they 
don’t do me a bit of good. Papa says I ought 
always to remember the heads of the discourse.” 


40 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ I should like to go with you and hear Par- 
son Toole.” 

“Would you, really, now? Oh, I do believe 
it would be real fun to go with you and just 
watch your face as Parson Toole lays down the 
Thirteenthly, and all the other ’teenthlies. 
But what do you write, anyhow, Mr. Stuart ? — 
Oh, excuse me, Pm impertinent.” 

“ Not in the least. I write stories, Miss 
Taft.” 

“ Oh, you do ! Real stories, that we see 
printed in books, and in the weekly papers, 
marked, ‘ To be continued in our next ? ’ ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And you are writing one of them now ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

The young girl moved slightly further away, 
and regarded him with a kind of reverence. 

“ What a rich man you must be, to write 
books ! ” 

“ Ha-ha-ha ! I ought to be, to be able to spend 
the time writing them.” 

“ Why ? Don’t they pay men great sums of 
money to write books ? ” 

“ That depends on how famous the men are 
before they write them.” 

“ And they can’t get to be famous except by 
writing them ? ” 


ONLY A FARM Eli'S LAUGHTER. 


41 


“ Precisely.” 

“ So that you have to have money in order 
to be able to spend the time to write and get 
famous ? ” 

“ Something like that. 

“ Oh ; I see.” 

She leaned her head sidewise in her hand as 
she contemplated this problem of getting money 
in order to become sufficiently famous to get 
more money. 

A man could not be an artist and not love 
such simple beauty. The soul of poetry is a 
simple soul, and has an affinity for that which 
is unaffected and innocent. The sunbonnet 
lay on the grass, and the light twinkling through 
the leaves touched her brown hair with gold. 

Acquaintances formed in the outer world 
grow slowly, and seldom very much ! They are 
hedged about with so many rules and proprie- 
ties. They are formed in the midst of so many 
incentives not to form them. There are so 
many other things for the big world to do, that 
the wonder is how it ever comes to do the 
things that it does do. 

But put a delightful young woman and an 
emotional young man together on a farm for a 
week, and how marvelously well they will come 
to know one another. What with writing and 


42 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


talking under the trees, gathering apples for the 
cider-mill, driving in to the Post-office of an 
evening, roasting chestnuts, and husking corn, 
Henry Stuart and Emily Taft became in a 
brief time pretty tolerably well acquainted. 

And when the Wednesday evening prayer- 
meeting came due, there was no more natural 
thing in the world than that the two should 
start off all by themselves to enjoy it. And as 
they walked down the lane to the schoolhouse, 
Miss Emily unconsciously slipped her little 
hand under his arm in order to walk more 
steadily along the road. 

There may have been twenty people in the 
little room when they entered. There were 
just two times as many eyes bent on them as 
there were people present. The little hand 
trembled just a little with an indescribable 
pleasure, as the girl came among all these 
people that she had known all her life, with 
this handsome youth whom they had never 
known. It trembled just a moment in its nest 
under the arm, and then it shrank away, as 
she passed in behind him. 

There was Deacon Emerson on the front 
seat, staring at her with two little black eyes 
buried in a little round brown head, like eyes 
in a withered potato. There was Brother Sim- 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


43 


mons, his son-in-law, right behind him, sitting 
guard over three prim little specimens of the 
next generation, each in purple sun-bonnet with 
yellow ribbons, their short legs meanwhile 
standing out straight from the seat, like pegs 
for the little red-toed shoes to hang on. There 
was Sister Wilson, the widow, and Sister Nel- 
son, the maid, — sisters in the flesh as well as in 
the Lord ; both spare-ribbed, yellow-visaged, 
keen of tongue. There was Brother Crandall, 
with his round, bald, moon-faced head lying 
over a still rounder and vaster body — as one 
might imagine a star rolling into occultation 
below the lunar sphere. There, too, were all 
the other oddities of this town among the hills, 
gathered for an hour of conference and prayer. 
And every mother’s son and daughter of them, 
with smile, or snicker, or upturned nose, or 
solemn stare, bent a pair of eyes on Emily Taft 
and the pale young man, as they came into 
prayer-meeting together. 

Joe Humphries, who sat on a back seat all by 
himself, was so interested that he rose to his 
feet and watched them until they sat down on 
the other side of the room, on two_more of the 
back seats. Joe was a rough-handed, round- 
shouldered farmer’s boy, only three or four 
years older than Emily. He had known Emily 


44 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

ever since he could remember having known 
anybody. He had played contentedly with her 
by the hour, when they both wore short dresses ; 
and as they grew bigger they used to play keep 
house — and Joe used to call her his little wife. 
Now, here was a handsome stranger, and what 
right had Emily to be sitting so close to him ? 

Last of all came Parson Toole, a short, heavy 
man, with enormous brass-bowed spectacles, and 
teeth as irregular as the burned stumps in a 
clearing — and as black. 

Parson Toole rose and gave out the hymn. 
He gave out hymns as he preached his sermons, 
— by inspiration, and not by premeditation. 
His doctrine was that if a man was “ called o’ 
God fer to preach,” he had nothing to do but 
open his mouth, and the preaching would go 
on automatically, very much as the pearls 
dropped out of the good little girl’s mouth. 
Parson Toole had never heard of the other 
little girl that had the supply of toads instead 
of pearls. 

So the Parson opened the hymn-book where 
it happened to open, and lined out the hymn. 
As books that have often been opened at the 
same place are not likely, when left to them- 
selves, to open at any other place, the brethren 
and sisters were already getting in a long breath 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


45 


for the wail which it would be necessary for 
them to emit so soon as he should have enun- 
ciated the usual : 

“ Why do we mourn departing friends ? ” 

Joe Humphries looked across, and thought 
he would not mourn very much, at any time 
the friend thought it suitable to start. 

Having wrought themselves into a sufficiently 
solemn condition by swaying back and forth 
and groaning out these hymnical conundrums, 
they all sat down again and listened while Par- 
son Toole prayed for all the world, collectively 
and individually. What wonder that in this 
very long prayer Emily should open her eyes 
just once and find two other eyes open close to 
hers ? And was it very, very wrong that when 
the little hand felt another hand, larger and 
stronger, it did not shrink quite away ? 

Perhaps it was also no wonder that the prayer 
seemed a hundred times longer than ever to 
Joe, seeing that he found the temptation too 
strong to keep his own eyes shut. 

There they sat close together, during all the 
quaint services of this so-called “ season of con- 
ference and prayer.” They listened to Parson 
Toole’s groping, floundering steps through the 
labyrinth of God’s truth, where the poor old 
man’s Ariadne had never given him any silken 


46 ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 

skein to find his way out again. They listened 
to Deacon Emerson’s exposition of fore-ordina- 
tion and the necessity of discipline — which last 
word he pronounced with the accent on the 
last syllable, and a very long sound to the i. 
They listened to Sister Wilson’s weekly account 
of what the Lord had done for her, and to 
Sister Nelson’s recital of all the sins she had 
not committed. 

They listened to all these things, but heard 
none of them. All they saw and felt was each 
other’s presence. They scarcely knew the ser- 
vices were over, until the audience began to 
gather in knots and to filter out through the door- 
way. Then they rose and followed, and the 
brown hair sparkled once more in the light of 
the candles, as they went forth into the night. 

“ Emily ! ” 

She turned. It was Joe behind her. The 
hand trembled that she had laid on Stuart’s arm. 

“ Excuse me, Mister. I don’t want to be im- 
polite, but there is something I want to say to 
Em — Miss Taft.” 

“ What’s the matter, Joe ? ” she asked, as she 
dropped behind. 

“ Emily ; I don’t know how to say it. I aint 
got all the beautiful words at the end o’ my 
tongue that these fine-educated city chaps have. 


ONLY A FARMER’ S DAUGHTER. 


47 


I can’t write poetry for you. I don’t look like 
a real gentleman, Emily, and I know you’re as 
far beyond me as the moon up there is from the 
candles in the school-house. But, Emily, I 
played with you when we were little, and I’ve 
seen you most every day in all my life, and — and 
— Em — Emily — I — I love you, and it’s break- 
ing my heart.” 

A great sob came out of the manly heart, but 
he choked it down again. 

“ But, Emily, I oughtn’t to have said this to 
you. It can’t ever make any difference to you. 
But, Emily, I just had to stop you to say this to 
you. And what I wanted to say is, that if you 
ever in all time to come — if ever any great sor- 
row should come to you, Emily — or if you 
should need an old friend, Emily — send for Joe 
Humphries.” 

With that he dashed away, before Emily 
could utter a word of reply. 

It was with a tearful face that on the walk 
home that evening, she made a lifelong promise, 
to be fulfilled when prosperity should entitle its 
fulfillment. 


48 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


CHAPTER IV. 

There was a grand ball at the residence of 
Madame Bonsoiree. It was really the residence 
of Mons. Bonsoiree. But somehow nobody ever 
thought of coupling his name with a grand ball 
at his house. Madame was so impressively mag- 
nificent that people forgot there was any Mons. 
Bonsoiree. A gas-lamp would never be missed 
if it went quite out under the shadow of an elec- 
tric light pole. 

Mons. Bonsoiree had some position or other 
down town. His main claim to recognition as 
a public necessity was, that he could furnish dia- 
monds for Madame’s neck. 

It was a fat neck, of no fairylike proportions. It 
would be a long and wearisome journey for a 
fly that should start from one of the stones of 
the necklace and endeavor to find his way all 
around. But it needed a neck of ample size 
and many hills and valleys in the way of cor- 
pulent wrinkles, to display advantageously that 
number of diamonds. 


ONLY A FARMERS DAUGHTER, 


49 


So Madame Bonsoiree stood in voluminous 
majesty at the door of her salon, and fanned 
the diamonds, while she informed each new-com- 
er how inexpressibly delighted she was to have 
the pleasure of his society for that evening. 
And each new-comer had never been so enchant- 
ed in his life, as the diamonds sparkled out of 
the wrinkles at him, like serpents, tongues. 

“ Mons. Lebeau and lady ! ” 

Madame Bonsoiree beamed with delight. 
Mons. Lebeau had only been in New York a 
few weeks. He possessed magnificent landed es- 
tates in the south of France, it was said. He 
had come to America with his beautiful wife, as 
he had gone to all the capitals of Europe. One’s 
education was not complete until he had studied 
mankind in all climes. Mons. Lebeau had stud- 
ied mankind in all other climes but this, and 
was now just ready for graduation as an alum- 
nus of that wide college known as “ the world.” 

Thus, it was that Madame Bonsoiree heard 
with very great delight the announcement from 
her servants — 

“ Mons. Lebeau and lady ! ” 

Mons. Lebeau spoke with a very slightly for- 
eign accent. Considering that Mons. Lebeau 
had visited all the capitals of Europe, it was 
not surprising that his tongue should have be- 


50 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


come sufficiently polyglot to speak English with 
but a slight foreign accent. 

“ Mr. Bonsoiree, Mons. Lebeau ! Madame 
Lebeau ! ” 

“ Ah, certainly. Delighted. Highly honored. 
Great pleasure.” 

Whereupon Bonsoiree mart, wrung his hands 
until the white gloves cracked between the fin- 
gers, and then turned anxiously to the next com- 
er, and interjected the same w6rds over again. 

Mons. Lebeau and lady floated magnificently 
about the room. 

“ Bah Jove, you know. Pahfectly stunning 
shoulders, those, you know. What a doocid 
pity, you know, if such a fine crechah were ob- 
liged to put on moah clothes, you know ! ” 

“ Weally magnificent, egad ! ” 

“Isn’t it just too horrid for anything that a 
woman nobody knows should come here with 
such perfectly elegant hair ? Who is the per- 
son, anyhow.” 

“ Name’s Lebeau, or some such name, Miss 
Mary. Some French name. Don’t believe ’s 
any more French ’n you are, Miss Mary. Not 
half nor a quarter so pretty, ’s one thing certain. 
Te— he— he.” 


(( 

u 


Stop flattering, you naughty boy. 
Te — he — he — he.” 


\ 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER 


51 


“ My dear, this Madame Lebeau is quite re- 
gal in the queenly poise of her head.” 

“ She is, indeed. We must have Madame 
Bonsoiree introduce us. She would be a very 
striking figure at our dinner-party next month.” 

“ Sammy, do you know this what’s ’is-name 
— Lebeau, or something like that ? ” 

“ Never met him. Understand, he’s im- 
mensely rich, though. Let’s get introduced and 
take him down and show him the lions among 
the bulls and bears.” 

Such were a dozen of the comments which 
followed Mons. Lebeau and lady as they sailed 
around the salon of Madame Bonsoiree. 

Mons. Lebeau and lady doubtless grew weary 
of the promenade ; for they sought a convenient 
retirement under the shadow of a window re- 
cess. 

Yet it was not so retired but that all the com- 
pany could still behold the queenly poise of the 
lady’s head, and the clear cut, strong chin of 
Mons. Lebeau. One after another of the but- 
terflies buzzed around and was introduced to 
them and buzzed away again to give place to 
others. 

Probably Mons. Lebeau and lady had very 
slight notion of the names of most of these fel- 
low insects. In the hum of general conversa- 


52 ONLY A FARMERS DAUGHTER. 

tion and the hasty, nervous mumbling of names, 
the introduction usually sounded like, 

“ Mons. yum — yum ; yum — yum — yum.” 

“ Mr. yum, hum — gum m — m — m ! ” 

But the name was not so important as the 
face. Mons. Lebeau scrutinized each face sharp- 
ly for an instant, as though striving to recollect 
whether he had ever seen it before, and, if so, 
where. Yet all the faces must have been new 
faces to him, although he had traveled much 
among the capitals of the Eastern world. 

“ Mons. yum — yum ; yum — yum — bum.” 

“ Hum — yum — fum ; bum — yum.” 

“ Delighted to meet with you, sir. I find a 
most charming society of people here in 
America.” 

“ I am surely very glad to hear you say so, 
Mons. Lebeau. I understand you have traveled 
much among other peoples than those of your 
native clime, and any compliment from so dis- 
tinguished a cosmopolitan is a high honor to 
America.” 

“ Thank you most sincerely, sir, for so grace- 
ful a compliment.” 

“ And, Madame — is it her first visit to 
America ? 

“Yes, indeed. And I only regret that I 
should have waited so long.” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHETR. 


53 


“ Madame has certainly not waited long .” 

An emphasis on the word “ long,” accompa- 
nied by a respectfully admiring glance at Mad- 
ame’s queenly head and lithe and graceful figure, 
conveyed the sentiment that madame was still 
in the bloom of youth. 

Madame was pleased. So pleased that a faint 
tinge softened the immaculateness of her pow- 
dered cheeks. Monsieur placed a gloved hand 
on his bosom and bowed slightly. That was a 
strong hand which Mons. Lebeau curved before 
his diamond-studded bosom ; slender, perhaps ; 
but the payer of compliments would have liked to 
feel that hand around his arm if he were drown- 
ing. — Not around his neck, though. 

“ But Madame has had no occasion to come 
into this new land. Castles in southern France 
are too charming to be deserted for such hos- 
pitalities as are to be found on this side the 
ocean.” 

" Really, sir, I have traveled about so much, 
that I scarcely feel I belong any longer to 
France.” 

“Yet I could hardly imagine such a state of 
mind.” 

“ But you judge the wilds of the Pyrenees by 
the romantic accounts you may have read in leg- 
ends.” 


54 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


“ On the contrary, Madame, I know the 
Pyrenees, almost better than I know my native 
land.” 

“ You have not been there ? ” 

“ Traveled over every foot of the ground, 
from Bordeaux and the Pyrenees to Lyons and 
Marseilles.” 

“ Ah ! ” 

“ But here comes Madame Bonsoiree with a 
gentleman and a lady whom I think she is going 
to introduce to you.” 

“ Desolated to have such charming conver- 
sation interrupted,” said Mons. Lebeau.” 

“ But we shall have a longer talk at our 
chateau ere long, let us hope,” said Madame 
Lebeau. 

The other bowed and said nothing, for 
Madame Bonsoiree was at hand. 

Then the two Lebeaus stood up, and the 
usual “ yum-yum-fum ” was repeated ; and after 
a moment’s conversation the promenade was 
resumed. But this time Mons. Lebeau escorted 
the lady that had just been introduced, and 
Madame Lebeau was escorted by the gentle- 
man. 

And while Mons. Lebeau and his companion 
excited very little attention, the other pair were 
a decided sensation. It was evident that 


ONLY A FARMER’ S' LAUGHTER. 


55 


Madame Lebeau’s escort was looked upon as 
a highly distinguished man, and Madame Le- 
beau, of course, was highly distinguished. For 
was she not Madame Lebeau ? And had she 
not a chateau in the South of France ? 

Some that looked on would have given their 
ears to hear the conversation between Madame 
and the tall, fine presence that moved so grace- 
fully and grandly about with her. 

It must have been an agreeable conversation ; 
for she smiled often, and turned her eye now 
and then up into his face, with a respectful, and 
at the same time almost affectionate glance. 
Had she known him before ? Or was this a 
case of love at first sight ? Or was his conver- 
sation so alluring that she had come under the 
spell of it without quite realizing how she felt? 

Mons. Lebeau asked himself all these ques- 
tions, as he bit his mustache and glanced un- 
easily at her in passing. He would gladly have 
heard what it was they were saying. But they 
said it all very quietly, in each other’s ear. No 
one could have heard anything, until they sat 
down near the window, and not then, unless he 
had been concealed behind the curtains. 

She heaved a long, gentle sigh, this Madame 
Lebeau, as she sat down in front of the cur- 
tains. It would have been quite in order to 


56 ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 

introduce some one else ; but this gentleman 
seemed to be as distinguished among men as 
she among women, and they were conversing 
so pleasantly together that no one ventured to 
interrupt them. 

“ So you did not know I was in town? ” 

“ Assuredly not ; or I should have hastened 
to you.” 

“ That was a delicious summer we spent in 
the mountains.” 

“ Indeed, yes. And you had not become 
Madame Lebeau then.” 

“ Neither had you the incumbrance who is 
over the other side of the room, talking so in- 
nocently to Mons. Lebeau.” 

“ True. The dear little woman was then 
among the woods and the hills of her natal 
home.” 

“ You forgot me very soon, I suppose.” 

“ Never ! Though I have no reason to imag- 
ine you remembered me long. How many 
months is it since you became Madame Le- 
beau ? ” 

li Don t talk of that, please ! Do you think 
I could ever forget you, Harry? You do not 
know all the perils, all the embarrassments that 
have encompassed me. If you had been there 
all the time with me.” 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


57 


“ Pooh ! ” 

“ Don’t put on that incredulous expression, 
Harry ! It looks like a sneer. Remember how 
many eyes are upon us.” 

“ True. Your beauty attracts them all.” 

“ You should say rather that a lady so fortu- 
nate as to monopolize a quarter hour of so 
distinguished a gentleman, is the envy of all the 
company.” 

“ But let us not talk of the past, now. There 
are too many watching us. Let us rail at the 
world around us.” 

“ A charming occupation,” said Madame Le- 
beau, lifting her shoulder — a shoulder of such 
polished whiteness that it seemed to reflect the 
light as it turned upward. As she turned she 
saw her husband coming toward her. 

She rose the instant she caught his glance, 
and a flash of annoyance or alarm darted from 
her eye. 

“ My dear,” said Mons. Lebeau, “ it is time 
for us to go. I had forgotten an appointment 
that must be kept with — you know whom.” 

“ Certainly,” said Madame Lebeau, looking 
about her as if something had been lost. 

“ Ah, here it is,” she said, stooping to recover 
a bit of lace handkerchief that had fallen the 
other side of her chair. The man she had been 


58 ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 

conversing with as “ Harry,” stooped at the 
same instant to pick it up for her. 

As their faces almost touched, she whispered. 
“ To-morrow morning, at eleven. Hoffman 
House.” 

Then there were more low bows, and these 
two that had drifted together thus unexpectedly, 
drifted apart again. 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER . 


59 


CHAPTER V. 

Fortunes go quickly. Fortune comes quick- 
ly, too, sometimes. So quickly as to startle 
him to whom it comes, with a sense of shock. 

It was a sudden good fortune that came to 
Henry Stuart. He had been preparing for it 
during several years. He had written innumer- 
able stories and poems, as many another young 
genius has, without anybody’s finding him out. 

His manuscripts had returned to him with all 
the certainty, and almost the occasional fatality 
of the Australian boomerang;. He grew t° l°°k 
upon them as one looks upon the visitor that 
comes with the periodical regularity of a bore 
who never has one idea in his head that he has 
not uttered on some previous occasion. 

But he did not send them away in their old 
clothes. He gave them each a new coat and 
sent them away once more, bidding them God 
speed. 

In other words, that he might not meet them 
in shabby attire, he wrote the first and last 
pages over many times, and each time they 


60 ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 

came home, he tore off the old and pasted on 
the new. 

At last one of them never came back. In- 
stead, came a letter with a handsome check in 
it, and a request that he would send another of 
the same kind. Then was there a great rattling 
of dry bones, as he brushed off the dust from 
the rest of the family, and sent them all out in 
a troop together. 

His talent met with sudden and great reward. 
He was famous, and what was just then more 
than fame to him, these old tramps that had 
come back to him so often, now sent him heaps 
of money to pay for their board and lodging; 
and he was now in a position to go up among 
the Berkshire hills, and claim the fulfillment of 
a certain promise made to him one autumn 
evening, going home from a prayer-meeting in 
a school-house. 

So the two were wed, and went out into the 
great world together. 

There were many tears, and many smiles, 
and many congratulations punctuated with sobs 
as the two stood up together in Farmer Taft’s 
parlor, and were made one. Farmer Taft shook 
the young man’s hand until he nearly wrenched 
it out of joint. Mother Taft kissed and wept over 
Emily’s face, and was too much embarrassed to 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


61 


say a word when her new son actually kissed 
her before all the company. 

Even Joe Humphries grasped Stuart’s hand 
and said : 

“ Ye’ve got a good, true, loving wife, Mr. 
Stuart, an’ I’ve no doubt you appreciate her, 
an’ ’ll be worthy of ’er.” 

So Emily Taft was Mrs. Stuart, the wife of 
the famous young author, and they went out 
into the world as one. 

It was a happy life for two years. He was a 
busy man, with his writings. But when he had 
leisure hours, it was their greatest happiness to 
spend those hours together. Thus it happened 
that when little Mollie Stuart opened her eyes 
for the first time in this world, she opened them 
in as happy a home ; . ould be found in all the 
city of New York. 

Henry Stuart seld< v, thought back in his life 
beyond the time when < Canceled him to Farmer 
Taft’s door for a nigl t’s lodging. From then 
to now was enough foi him to remember. And 
he looked lovingly from Emily, across the table 
where he was writing, to the little Mollie in her 
cradle, and wondered if Mollie would be like 
Emily, when she grew up. 

Sometimes his thoughts went back to a sum- 
mer he had spent in Switzerland, and to a 


62 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

creature — a wonderfully beautiful creature — he 
had met there, who, he thought, was almost in 
love with him. Had he been in love with her? 
He looked again at Emily, and said to himself : 
“ No.” 

Thus it was that when he unexpectedly met 
this fair creature of long ago, and found her 
now the dazzling Madame Lebeau, a sensation 
bubbled through his bosom, such as he had not 
experienced in years. 

He had never realized that she could be so 
beautiful. To be sure, he had never seen her 
in all these diamonds. Then she was more 
simply, sweetly lovable ; now she was enchant- 
ing, like a magician. 

When she said he could come to her hotel, 
and had so evidently dropped her handkerchief 
for the express purpose of being able to say it 
to him, he was startled. His first impulse was 
not to go. This association was dangerous. 
He would do far better to stay away from 
this bewitching Madame Lebeau. 

But he did not stay away. The next morn- 
ing, at eleven, found him at the Hoffman House 
sending up his card to Madame Lebeau. 

“ Oh, I knew you would come, Harry. What 
a pity Mons. Lebeau is not here ! But he was 
called away on important business an hour ago, 
and cannot possibly be back until after two.” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


63 


She smiled bewitchingly. 

And she was enchanting. She had on one 
of those loose morning wrappers of wonderful 
colors and dainty ornamentations of lace. Her 
arm was bare to the elbow, and the roundest, 
firmest, whitest arm it was in all the world. 
The white hand, tapering into pink-tipped fin- 
gers. toyed with a jewelled fan. 

It would be useless to describe her face. No 
one ever remembered of what kind her face was 
when once those eyes had looked into his. 
They were full, rich, black eyes with long lashes 
and silky eyebrows ; and when they once glowed 
with tenderness, the little flame kindled into an 
overpowering, all-devouring heat, until the pas- 
sion that leaped from them was more than mor- 
tal man could endure. 

She turned those eyes on Stuart, and he 
straightway forgot the hesitation he had felt 
about coming. He had felt somewhat annoyed 
at the thought of calling in Lebeau’s absence. 
Now he was glad to hear that Lebeau would 
not return until two o’clock. 

“ So Madame Lebeau has not quite forgotten 
me in all these years ? ” 

“ Forgotten you, Harry ! ” 

She looked at him a moment, and then said 
in a softer voice : 


64 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


“ Don’t call me that. Call me as you did 
once.” 

“ You mean — ” 

She looked again, with more fascinating elo- 
quence than any words could express. But 
she said, in a still lower tone, almost a whis- 
per : — 

“ Annette.” 

“ Annette ! ” The word escaped him before 
he knew what he was saying. 

She thanked him by a slight pressure of the 
hand that lay nearest her. That touch ran 
through him like the quiver of an electric bat- 
tery. 

Perhaps she thought she had gone too far ; 
for she drew slightly away from him, and was 
silent a moment. His feet were buried in - the 
fur of a tiger-skin that lay in the middle of the 
room. The tiger’s nose was upturned, as 
though scenting his blood. He wondered what 
he should do if the monster were suddenly to 
take on life and spring at him. 

Then she spoke again : — - 

“ So you remember the good old days in Swit- 
zerland, Harry ? ” 

“ You are the same as then, Annette. Only 
more beautiful,” he added after a slight pause. 

“ Do you think so ? ” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 65 

Why did she throw all the warmth into that 
tone ? Why should she toy with him in that 
fashion ? Was she not Madame Lebeau ? 

“Yes. Though I would not then _ have 
thought it possible.” 

Her only reply was a toss of the white arm. 
The lace tumbled softly back above her elbow. 
Beautiful ! That arm might have raised a blush 
on the Venus of Milo ! 

“ But you forgot me all the same. ? Has Mrs. 
— Stuart ever been with you to Switzerland 
since those days ? ” 

“ Mrs. Stuart has never been abroad. And 
if she had, I could never have taken her there.” 

Why did he say it? He could have bitten 
out a piece of his lip, after he said it. Was he 
never to escape from the spell of this woman 
— this Madame Lebeau ? 

She simply said, 

“ Thank you.” 

Then, after a pause, she asked, 

“ But tell us about it ; who is she, and where 
did you find her ? ” 

“ Oh, never mind. It could not interest you.” 

“ She is a good woman, I know. She has a 
sweet face.” 

“ Another kind of face from yours, Annette.” 

“ Perhaps that is a compliment — to her or to 


me. 


5 


66 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

“No woman ever had such a face as yours, 
Annette.” 

“ No ? ” 

She tapped the tiger-skin with her foot. A 
delicate, yet strong foot, with exquisitely turned 
curves. The toes were encased in an embroid- 
ered slipper ; but the soft silk stocking was its 
only cover. 

“ I remember once^ Harry, that I wanted to 
reach a flower growing in a ledge of rock. You 
wanted to pick it for me, but I wouldn’t let you, 
I venture, you don’t remember what I did.” 

Was it near Interlaken, when we were walk- 
ing out on the main road in the direction of 
Grindelwald ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

She clasped her two white hands and leaned 
forward a little toward him, her red lips parted. 

“ You put your foot in my hand and sprang 
into the air, and tore out the flower by the roots.” 

“ So I did.” 

She tapped the tiger-skin again. 

“ That is the same foot, Harry.” 

“ Why did I ever leave you there, Annette ? ” 

He w'as frightened, as soon as he had said this. 
He had not meant to say so much. If any one 
had told him^ an hour before, that he would 
make anything other than the most formal call 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 


67 


on this woman, he would have been incredu- 
lous. Yet here he was calling her Annette ; and 
he had expressed regret at having ever left her ! 

“ You ought not to have gone away, Harry.” 

He roused himself by a mighty effort. 

“ But this is folly, Madame Lebeau. What 
might have been, is not. You are no longer 
Annette, but Madame.” 

She looked pensively at the carpet. 

“ Harry ! ” 

Her face was turned away. She seemed to 
be choking down a sob. 

“ Harry, there is much in my life that may 
suggest an explanation. It is all right that you 
should distrust me and shrink away from me. 
You do not know what I have suffered ; what 
a strange, unaccountable, inexplicable history 
I have had. You never knew my past when we 
met in Switzerland. You have known nor heard 
nothing of me since we parted in Switzerland. 
You are right to distrust me and shrink from 
me now. Then — you did not shrink from me.” 

She suddenly turned back toward him. Her 
lip trembled, and her glowing eyes — they 
would have melted the death out of a marble 
statue and enacted the story of Pygmalion and 
Galatea over again. He could not help it — 

“ Annette,” he said, “ don’t speak so. Don’t 


68 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


look so. I trusted you then. I believed in you 
then. I do, now, implicitly.” 

“ Thank you.” 

She laid her hand on his. It was moist with 
excitement and hot, so that the touch seemed 
almost to pain him. Yet he felt no inclination 
to draw his own away. Her thoughts were doubt- 
less wandering, and she knew not what she did ; 
for she held his hand a moment in both of hers. 

“ Now you are a good boy, just as you used 
to be. If you are going to be good you may 
come over here and sit beside me on the sofa.” 

He would rather have not. Yet he did not 
like to say unpleasant things. This was only 
a morning call. He would probably never see 
her again, and now that he was alone with her 
and no harm could possibly come of it, he would 
humor her fancies. 

He rose from his chair and sat down on the 
sofa beside her. 

“ There now. At last you are like yourself. 
And now we will have a cosy little talk all by 
our two selves. For, for you know,” said she, 
nestling her hand under his arm, “ Mons. Le- 
beau is not coming back until two o’clock.” 

The little porcelain clock on the mantel struck 
twelve. 

“ Now tell me all about yourself, Harry.” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


69 


He could keep back nothing. The story told 
itself; and as he went on with it, he grew more 
used to this extraordinary situation. For she lis- 
tened very quietly and never seemed disturbed 
by anything he told. It did not seem at all 
strange to him to have this woman sitting close 
beside him, and occasionally stroking his hand 
with her fingers, all the while that he told her of 
the years since he had been in Switzerland, and 
of his vacation among the hills of Massachusetts, 
and of Emily and his home with her, and — no, 
lie did not mention Mollie. Just that moment 
the thought of the little pink face lying in the 
white pillow of its little cradle, cast a halo of 
sacredness about this new relation with Emily, 
and he was almost sorry he had told so much. 

But his embarassment passed quickly away ; 
for she asked in the most matter-of-fact way : 

“ How many children have you, Harry ? ” 

And all the while she held his hand as quiet- 
ly and in as matter of course a way as if she had 
been a sister to whom he was giving an account 
of some journey. 

Then she told him of herself. She spoke 
first in broken sentences, as though thinking 
her way along — as though she either had for- 
gotten what she wanted to tell or was afraid to 
tell it. But the words came more freely after 
a little. 


70 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 


She told him how, under pressure of a great 
sorrow, the remembrance of a very painful event 
in her early life — an event which occurred before 
she had ever met him — she nearly lost her rea- 
son ; how, in her despair at not having her 
Harry at hand to comfort her, and not even 
knowing: his address so as to communicate with 
him, she wandered over Europe; how, in the 
time of her greatest loneliness, she met a wealthy 
and noble Frenchman in Berlin, who became 
attracted by her beauty and offered her his 
hand ; how, for a long time she rejected him, 
thinking all the while that the greatest happi- 
ness on earth would be to see Harry and find 
comfort in talking with him ; how, at last, un- 
der the pressure of her loneliness, she had con- 
sented and had become Madame Lebeau ; how 
she had since then traveled up and down through 
the whole earth, seeking pleasure and never 
finding it ; how her one thought had been to 
see once more for but a single hour her old — 
might she call him her old friend ? — Harry 
Stuart. 

Her voice grew deeper, and softer, and more 
tender as she went on with this story. The 
flow of language which seemed impeded at first 
by uncertainty as to what she ought to say, be- 
came choked still more toward the end, by brok- 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 71 

en sobs ; till at last, as she mentioned his 
name, “ Harry,” her head drooped on his shoul- 
der and she said no more. 

He would not have been human had he not 
done it. — He folded his arm around her shoul- 
ders and drew her closer to him. She was 
quiet there, for some time. 

The jaws in the end of the tiger-skin were 
still stretched wide under their feet. The 
thought went through his brain of the dear little 
woman at home, knitting and smiling as she 
thought her Harry would soon be home, and 
gently rocking the cradle with her foot. She 
— she was only a farmer’s daughter ; but she 
had been true and loving to him, and she was 
his wife — yes, and he loved her too, with his 
whole heart. 

What if she could see him here? Would she 
understand it ? He felt sure she would be 
quite ready to understand it kindly, if he chose 
to speak. 

Yet here he was, with his arm around this 
woman’s shoulder, and her hand in his, calling 
her “ Annette,” the while that she called him 
“ Harry ! ” And she was another man’s wife, 
as he was another woman’s husband ! 

The shock of this thought almost made him 
break loose from her. Yet he did not. What 


72 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


was the spell that kept him ? Could any mor- 
tal man break away from Madame Annette’s 
arms, if those gentle fingers closed about his 
hand ? Soft and womanly fingers they were ; 
yet what may not the tenderest of woman’s 
hands have done ? 

“ You will come and see me often, won’t 
you ? ” she asked, in a pleading tone, as the hour 
drew on when he must go. 

He had hoped to avoid a future meeting of 
this kind. It would perhaps have been better 
to avoid the first meeting ; then there would 
have been no trouble about the second. When 
she asked him, it seemed quite a matter of 
course to answer : — 

“Yes.” 

A half-hour later, when Mons. Lebeau en- 
tered his apartments at the Hoffman, there was 
a cloud on his brow, and his face was slightly 
paler than wont. 

“ Half-past two,” said he gruffly. “ The west- 
ern train leaves at six-thirty. You must be 
ready.” 

“ What is it ? ” said she, trembling. “ Has 
anything happened ? ” 

He looked at her in an impenetrable, stony 
sort of way. 

“ It’s nothing of consequence that we need 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 


73 


talk about,” said he. “ By the way, what a sin- 
gularly delightful time we had at Bonsoirees 
last evening. I don’t know when I have met 
so many interesting people.” 

“ I scarcely thought so,” she replied. “Very 
few people interest me in these gatherings, and 
I have fallen into the habit of assuming they are 
not going to interest me.” 

“ I wish they would pronounce names more 
distinctly. I don’t know a single name that 
was mentioned last night in all the introduc- 
tions.” 

“ Very stupid of people to do so.” 

“ For instance, that man who said he had 
traveled all over the south of France — I met 
him ten minutes ago, sauntering about the 
hotel.” 

“ Did he recognize you ? ” 

“ He^ bowed. And when I entered the hotel 
door I turned around and there he stood talk- 
ins; with a villainous-looking fellow — both look- 
ing at me. We must go on the six-thirty 
train.” 

“ I will be ready.” 


74 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


CHAPTER VI. 

“ Just in time for dinner, dearie. And where 
have you been all this long day ? ” 

“All day!” 

Stuart rubbed his eyes. He did not know 
he had been gone all day. He must have wan- 
dered about for three hours or more since he 
left — Annette. 

“ All day,” she repeated, not in a fault-finding 
tone, but with an accent that meant, “ It was a 
great while, but I’m satisfied now that you have 
come back again.” 

He sat down on the sofa, and she nestled on 
the sofa beside him. 

“Just as much a pair of lovers now as we 
were up in Massachusetts, eh, dearie ? ” 

“ More,” she said, looking straight up into his 
eyes. 

“ How would she have looked if she could 
have seen me all the afternoon,” he asked him- 
self. Very likely just the same. She would 
have thought there was some good reason for 
it all, and waited quietly for him to give it, if he 
thought best. 


ONL Y A FARMER- S DA TIGHTER. 75 

And thus, the confidence and love of this 
good woman gradually effaced the memory of 
the other. He was quite sure, as he thought it 
all over in his own mind, that he did not care 
for the other. He blamed himself for not hav- 
ing shaken off the old influence. He regretted 
that he should have told his life so freely, or 
that he should have listened to what she had 
to say. 

But it would not matter. He would not see 
her again. 

Yet he did call again at the Hoffman House 
the very next afternoon, and was informed that 
Mons. and Madame Lebeau had left last even- 
ing. He was not sorry to hear they had gone, 
and was almost glad he did not know where. 
Most likely they had gone home to France, and 
he would never hear of them again. So the 
chraming old life went on as ever, with its hours 
of busy writing and all its never-ceasing re- 
minders of the presence of the one dear woman 
whose whole life was in him. In no direction 
could he look from his writing without seeing 
something that she had made for him or which 
she had arranged in some situation where she 
knew he liked to see it. 

Every new chapter was read to her, and many 
a one was rewritten as a result of her criticism. 


76 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


The wild romanticism of his nature was soften- 
ed and mellowed by this home atmosphere, and 
many of the most touching passages — chapters 
that melted the stoniest hearts to tears, and 
made their author famous, were inspired by 
this simple, loving daughter of the farm. 

“ Harry, my boy,” said Inspector to him, 

one evening, “ Why don’t you give over these 
love-stories, and write something real sensa- 
tional ? ” 

And right here let me express the hope that 
my sensitiveness about giving the Inspector’s 
name will be duly respected. An Inspector of 
Police is a very high official, and if names were 
to be mentioned, it might prove somewhat un- 
comfortable for me, as well as decidedly unpleas- 
ant to any possibly surviving friends of the In- 
spector in question. 

The result of the Inspector’s question was a 
visit not long after to the official sanctum, where 
strange secrets of crime are locked away, clas- 
sified and kept in readiness for use if occasion 
should ever require. 

“ Now, Harry, ’’said Inspector , lockingthe 

door behind him, “ here you are in my sanctum 
where you have been a hundred times before. 
But in all the hundred times, you never saw 
the things I am going to show you now.” 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 


77 


He unlocked a drawer and placed three or 
four heavy books on the desk. They were 
bound in stout leather, as though to endure a 
vast deal of tumbling about, and were filled with 
closely written pages. 

“ There, Harry, are secrets enough to fill the 
Ledger and the Weekly with electrifying stories ; 
‘ to be continued in our next,’ down to the year 
1900.” 

“ What is it all about ? ” 

“ That is an account of interesting crimes that 
have been perpetrated in this city and county, 
and the perpetrators of which have not been 
brought to justice. Myself and one of my pre- 
decessors have spent years in writing up these 
volumes.” 

He gazed at them and patted their tough 
leather backs with a sort of paternal fondness. 

“ But of what use is it all ? ” inquired Stuart. 

“ Use ! Why the accounts in these books 
are the very means by which some of the crim- 
inals will be brought to justice. I ought to 
qualify what I said first : — Some of these crim- 
inals have been tracked. You will notice an 
occasional mark in red ink. Those marks re- 
fer to another memorandum where particulars 
of the criminals are given.” 

Stuart began to turn over the pages with in- 
terest. 


78 


ONLY A FARMER’ S DAUGHTER. 


“ And those red marks” continued the Inspec- 
tor “ are a flag of distress to the criminal — or 
would be, if he could see them ; for they are a 
sign that we are going to find him.” 

The Inspector’s eyes glowed as he fondled 
these pages and stroked the red ear-marks. 

“ See,” said he, “ there is my other book — my 
book of annotations, so to speak — the index 
referred to in the red marks. There is one of 
them. You notice the bigbook tells of a fire 
in a Seventeenth Street tenement, where no ex- 
planation was ever given of the fire — only that 
the charred bones of a human being were found 
on the floor where the fire was. 

“ Strangest thing in the world, you would 
say, that a person in the room should have been 
consumed with fire, and yet the house not have 
burned down.” 

“ How do you explain it ? ” 

“ I can tell you how they did explain it. They 
called it spontaneous combustion of the person 
that died. But do you see that red mark ? ” 
The inspector turned over the pages of the 
little book with feverish earnestness. 

“ Here it is ; here. — Look at that ! ” 

Stuart read a confession of a criminal who 
was arrested for burglary, and who acknowledg- 
ed having murdered an old woman in Seven- 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 79 

teenth Street by burning her alive, because she 
had detected him in the act of committing an- 
other burglary. 

“ And this horrible fellow was hanged I sup- 
pose ? ” 

“ Not a bit of it,” said the Inspector, “ not a 
bit of it ; not a bit of it. He broke jail, and is 
free to this day, if he hasn’t followed up the 
breaking by breaking his neck.” 

“ Speaking of old women,” said the Inspector 
again, fumbling over the pages of another one 
of the heavy books, “there’s another old woman 
I want to show you about. Mind now, it is only 
because you are a very particular friend of 
mine and are also a great author in search of 
plots, that I show you any of these things.” 

“ I don’t need to tell you that I appreciate it,’’ 
rejoined Stuart ; and what is more, I’m sure I 
shall get some valuable hints out of those old 
books.” 

“Just so,” said the Inspector, in an absent- 
minded tone ; “just so, just so. Ah ! here it is. 
Now read that, and tell me what you think of it.” 

“ M-m-m ! ” muttered Stuart in a thoughtful 
way. “ That ought to have been too easy a 
crime to discover.” 

“ Wouldn’t you think so ? An elderly woman 
found dead in her room on the top-floor of a 


80 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


rear-house in Street, just off Sixth Avenue. 

A house of bad reputation for thieves and 
sluggers. An old woman living with her beau- 
tiful daughter who had a lover that had come 
out of Sing Sing the very day the old woman 
was murdered.” 

“ Very easy to arrest the fellow over again.” 

“ Very easy, indeed ! Do you know, Harry, 
that from the moment that fellow boarded the 
Sing Sing train for New York, that morning, 
five years ago, there has been neither track nor 
trace of him.” 

“ He must have come to the old woman and 
murdered her quietly and then made off with 
her money.” 

“ But the indications are that he did not kill 
her. The old woman was strangled, and the 
marks do not indicate a hand so large as"this 
man’s hand. 

“ Perhaps — no, the young woman could never 
have killed her own mother.” 

“ Whether she did or not may never be 
known — will probably never be known; for she 
herself w'as found drowned, two days after.” 

“ Was no effort made to discover the convict 
from Sin sc Sins:? ” 

“ No effort ? Look here ! By the way, you 
have been through the Rogue’s Gallery ? But 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


81 


in your hasty view you most likely never stopped 
to enjoy a sight of the choicest of them. There 
is a little album of mine, containing duplicates 
of the choicest of these scoundrels.” 

The Inspector’s “ little album ” was as large 
a volume as one would choose to carry in both 
arms. 

“ There, Harry. Just remember that fellow’s 
face, and if ever you see anything that looks 
like him, send for me, and you and I will have 
a pension fat enough to keep us in clover to the 
end of our days.” 

It was an ordinary face. That is to say, it 
was ordinary until you looked steadily at it for 
a few moments. 

Roman nose; lips curving down at the ends 
of the mouth; high cheek bones; eyes that 
looked through you and beyond you, and seemed 
to mesmerize you. 

“ That fellow, Harry, can’t be above forty 
years old, and can no more be dead than the 
devil is. And you and I, Harry, must find him 
if he is alive.” 

“ If so great a detective as you can’t find him 
whatever should I do ? ” 

“ You ? Well, not much, I suppose,” said 
the Inspector, gazing up at the wall, like a man 
talking of one thing, and thinking about an- 
other. 6 


82 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

“ But, Harry, I brought you down here and 
turned you loose among these old books to see 
if you could find some new plot for your novels. 
Only, don’t publish one till I look it over and 
see if ’twill answer.” 

“ I think I have found one,” said Harry. 

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat ! 

“ Whisht, Harry ! There’s somebody at this 
private door.” 

The Inspector unbarred the door. 

“ Oh, it’s you ! Come right in.” 

The man looked inquiringly at Stuart, and 
hesitated on the threshold. 

“ Never mind him,” said the Inspector. 
“ You’ll excuse us a moment, won’t you, Harry ?’ 

“ Certainly.” 

Then the Inspector and his visitor talked in 
low tones at the other end of the room. The 
subject was evidently an exciting one, to judge 
from the exclamations which occasionally es- 
caped the Inspector — and he was not an excit- 
able man, either. 

Stuart busied himself looking at the relics of 
burglar’s tools, and gambling dens, and the 
scores of implements of crime which had been 
collected in a long life of police service. But 
at length the Inspector called him. 

“ Harry, allow me to introduce one of our 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 83 

gentlemen friends, who does business for us in 
a quiet way. Mr. Perkins — Mr. Stuart.” 

Stuart bowed, and on looking squarely in the 
face of this late visitor was surprised to recog- 
nize one of the men he had met at Madame 
Bonsoiree’s reception. 

“ I think I have seen you before, Mr. Per- 
kins.” 

“ I remember you perfectly, Mr. Stuart.” 

“ Harry,” said the Inspector, “ here’s a good 
chance for you to work up a grand, good novel, 
and at the same time help out the cause of 
justice. If you will devote yourself to the 
secret service for a few weeks, you may get no 
end of glory. I know you used to have abilities 
in this line, and not being regularly connected 
with the force, you can work all the more 
surely ; for you won’t be known.” 

“ What’s it all about ? ” 

“ Why, that picture I was just showing you ; 
— the murder of the old woman who lived off 
Sixth Avenue — don’t you know ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You tell him, Perkins. Don’t be afraid of 
Stuart ; you can turn yourself wrongside out to 
him.” 

“ The truth is, Mr. Stuart, as I was just re- 
marking to the Inspector here, the evening I 


84 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


first met you I was, as I think, on the eve of a 
great discovery. You remember Mons. Le- 
beau ? ” 

“ Perfectly.” 

“ I was having some charming conversation 
with him about the time you came up. He 
has castles in the south of France. When I 
remarked to him that I knew every inch of 
the territory, he got uneasy — as though his 
castles in the south of France might be castles 
in Spain — saves ? 

“ Well ? ” 

“ The next day I saw him in front of his 
hotel. He looked very much annoyed when he 
saw me, and he turned around and looked after 
me as he was going in at the door. I happen- 
ed to be talking with a friend at the moment, 
and Mons. Lebeau looked decidedly frightened. 
Lebeau said at the Bonsoirees that he was go- 
ing to stay here an indefinite time. Two hours 
after he saw me looking at him in front of the 
hotel, he and his estimable wife and all their 
trunks went up to the Grand Central Depot.” 

“ See, Harry ? ” said the Inspector, slapping 
his thigh. 

Harry saw but two well. Lebeau must have 
been frightened at the sight of this man, Per- 
kins ; for had not Annette urged him to call 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


85 


next day ? and Annette would have told him 
if she had known they were to leave New York 
that very afternoon. 

So he simply said : 

“ I suppose I shall see better when you ex- 
plain yourself a little.” 

“ People don't start on long journeys at a 
moment’s warning,” said Mr. Perkins, “ unless 
they have some very pressing motive. Mons. 
Lebeau bought two tickets for Denver, Col- 
orado, and left on the six-thirty train.” 

“ What was he afraid of? ” inquired Stuart. 

Mr. Perkins turned over the leaves of the 
album which the Inspector had exhibited. 

“ Look at this picture, Mr. Stuart. Add a 
waxed black mustache, a pointed goatee, 
bushy hair, and five years of freedom, and you 
have the face of — ” 

“ Mons. Lebeau! ” exclaimed Stuart. 

“ Why, Harry, you’re pale as a ghost. If 
you’re going to help us do detective work, you 
must keep your color and not be surprised at 
anything.” 

“ I confess I am a little startled, old fellow.” 

If the Inspector and his assistant Perkins 
could have known all that was passing through 
Stuart’s mind, they might have excused him 
for turning pale. 


85 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ Beg your pardon, but didn’t I see that 
picture before Mr. Perkins came in ? ” 

“ To be sure you did. Wasn’t I just telling 
you about the murder of the old woman ? ” 

“ Followed,” said Mr. Perkins, “ By the mys- 
terious drowning of the young woman that 
lived with her — her daughter, it is supposed.” 

“ And this scoundrel, Harry, murdered the 
girl, and pretty likely the old woman, too.” 

“ I see it all, said Stuart,” running his fingers 
through his hair, while the cold perspiration 
stood out on his forehead. 

“ And don’t you think, Harry, that this 
thing well worked up, would make a novel 
that would beat your paltry love-stories all to 
nothing ? ” 

Stuart controlled himself by a powerful effort 
and answered, — 

“ Yes.” 

“ Now then, my boy, this fellow has got to 
be tracked. He doesn’t know you for a mem- 
ber of the force, but if you’d like the job, we’ll 
make you a member of the force long enough 
to take the trip out to Denver.” 

“ And Mr. Perkins — ” 

“ Perkins is no- good out there. He’s been 
spotted. If Perkins showed himself in the 
streets of Denver, that man Lebeau — and his 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


87 


name’s no more Lebeau than yours is Tom — 
and Jerry — that man Lebeau would disperse 
himself quicker’n a flock of partridges.” 

“ What is it you want me to do, then ? ” 

“ Go to Denver. I’ll give you a letter of in- 
troduction to a fellow out there, and he’ll tell 
you what more to do. What say ? Will you 
go ? ” 

Stuart hesitated a moment, but then said 
firmly : 

“ I will go.” 

“ You’re a brick,” said the Inspector, patting 
him on the shoulder. 


ss 


OELY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


CHAPTER VII. 

In our childhood we read of Aladdin’s pal- 
aces and wondered if such things could any- 
where be. Since our childhood one of them 
has built itself in the heart of what was then 
the Great American Desert. For a mighty city, 
born and grown in twenty-odd years, is a large 
municipal palace more dazzling than Aladdin 
ever heard of in a proportionate length of time. 

Thirty years ago there was a desolate expanse 
where the burning summer sun cooled his rays 
by reflecting them back from the snowy Rockies, 
as he rolled upward from the East toward the 
heat of the noon. 

Precious minerals were heard of in this home 
of desolation where scarcely anything grew 
more juicy than rocks— unless we except the 
cactus-plant. Some stray miners, fought and 
starved their way through the Indians, buffaloes 
and rattle-snakes, until they reached this haunt 
of gold and silver and precious stones. 

They in time moved along down Cherry Creek 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


89 


to where it empties — what there is of the poor 
little stream to empty — into the River Platte. 
As the poor little creek was almost lost in the 
wilderness and could only maintain its equa- 
nimity by thus leaning on the great river that 
rolled far away back into the world, so these 
straggling miners huddled themselves into a 
hamlet of huts and called it all “ Amaria,” after 
the name of an old town they knew near home 
on the Atlantic coast. 

A dozen years more, and before the gray 
hairs had fairly begun to sprinkle over those 
miner’s heads, their huts, six hundred miles from 
any suggestion of civilization when they were 
built, had become surrounded by a city of fifteen 
thousand people, the center of five railroads. 

Another half dozen years and they were in 
the capital of a State. And now, before their 
grandchildren have got out of short dresses, 
their city has more than fifty churches, well and 
on to a hundred thousand inhabitants ; and there 
is not a luxury, from hotels and banks by the 
handful, down to — no, up to Turkish baths, chi- 
ropodists, and manicures, that these miners can- 
not find right within shouting distance of their 
own firesides. 

What wonder then, if Mons. Lebeau, the dis- 
tinguished French gentleman who had castles 


90 


ONLY A FA11U Eli'S LAUGHTER. 


all his own in the South of France, and who 
had traveled and lingered among all the great 
cities of Europe, should feel an anxiety to travel 
to and perhaps linger for a brief period in the 
wonderful Aladdin city of Denver? 

That Denver is a very long way off from New 
York and that New r York troubles herself, ac- 
cordingly, very little about who may happen to 
be in Denver, and could of course not have influ- 
enced Mons. Lebeau in coming to Denver. He 
could never go back to his castle in the South 
of France without having seen Denver; ergo , 
he had better get there all at once or, in stop- 
ping by the way at such little towns as St. Louis 
and Chicago, his heart might fail him, and he 
might never reach Denver in his respected life. 

So Mons. Lebeau having rolled out on the 
six-thirty P. M. train from the Grand Central 
Depot in New York, accompanied by chere Ma- 
dame Lebeau, stopped never at all in his journey, 
until he rolled in at the Union Depot at the end 
of Seventeenth Street, in the City of Denver, 
and was still further rolled in a cab to the Wind- 
sor Hotel, on the corner of Eighteenth Street. 

And only forty-eight hours had elapsed before 
another train rolled in at the same Union 
Depot, and there deposited Mr. Henry Stuart. 
Led by the similarity in names of great hotels 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


91 


in great cities, Mr. Stuart made choice of res- 
idence as Mons. Lebeau had done ; only, where- 
as Mons. Lebeau had gone to the Windsor, Mr. 
Stuart was carried to the Brunswick. The 
Brunswick being in Sixteenth Street near Lar- 
imer, and the Windsor on the corner of Larimer 
and Eighteenth, Mr. Stuart and Mons. Lebeau 
were removed about two blocks, each from the 
other. 

Scarcely daring to venture out of his hotel 
for fear that Mons. Lebeau might see him and 
ask strange questions of himself, Mr. Stuart 
nevertheless did make bold to go out under cov- 
er of the evening and reconnoitre the registers 
of the prominent hotels. As he went first of 
all to the Windsor, he soon became aware that 
Mons. and Madame Lebeau had preceded him 
by about eight-and-forty hours. 

Trembling with anxiety and almost with re- 
morse at the possible results of the commission 
he had undertaken, he wandered about the 
streets of this new city. 

The shop windows were filled with all the 
things, both curious and useful, which he had 
seen in the shop-windows at home. The same 
people, too, met him in the streers — and why 
shouldn’t they ? For they all came from the 
East, or their fathers and mothers did. 


9'2 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

On he wandered, until the busy places were 
left, and as he came gradually on an elevation 
the houses were set back from the street and 
had beautiful lawns and flower-beds in front of 
them. He passed one massive building with a 
dome on it, and he thought it might be a Court 
House or perhaps the Capitol, and while he still 
stood near the building he had already forgotten 
what he had thought it misdtt be. 

For, all the while that he wandered about 
and knew in a vague, animal sort of way that 
his material person was walking in strange 
scenes, his real self was the other side of the 
globe. 

He thought of a summer, but a few years ago, 
when he met for the first time a wonderful 
woman in far-off Switzerland. He thought of 
her intoxicating eyes, and the way they used to 
drink in his soul when he looked at them. He 
thought of the burning kisses that melted 
through his lijas into his soul. He thought of 
all the hot, passionate, loving words that were 
whispered into his ear from those red lips. 

He grew dizzy as he remembered all the un- 
real dream of those few days — or were they 
weeks ? 

Then she passed out of his life as he out of 
hers. He wandered into the country and found 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


93 


another love among the mountains of New 
England. 

Was it better — this new love ? She had been 
good, very good to him. She had turned her 
back on home. She had waited for him till 
good fortune came ; then she had come to him. 
and his home had been hers. 

He had thought he loved the new love truly. 
It was a simpler, quieter nature, perhaps. It 
was a quiet, comfortable feeling she always gave 
him, to look at her. The very air of the house 
was the calm of flowery, sunny Spring-time. 
But did he love this new one who had trusted 
all to him, who was his wife, and the mother of 
his child ? 

Was the calm and joy of home comparable 
to the intoxication cf long ago ? What com- 
parison could there be between a homely dinner 
and a champagne supper ? Yet the champagne 
left more headache than was well, perhaps. 

Why had he left home and come here, two 
thousand miles away? To track a criminal? 
To find a plot for a sensational novel ? Fa- 
mous authors don’t travel two thousand miles, 
just to oblige the Police ; nor do they abandon 
home to do detective work on the other side of 
a continent, simply to get a plot for a story. 

No! That meeting in the Hoffman House 


94 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

had fired his blood with some new insanity. 
The Devil, in guise of a Police Inspector, had 
appeared at an opportune moment. He had 
come on this journey — yes, under the shadows 
of the lonely evening in the Western city he 
confessed it to himself — he had come because 
of one mad longing to be near, at any cost, to 
those eyes, and hear whispered in his ear such 
confidences and such sentiments as only one 
woman in the world had the right to whisper 
there. And that other woman was his wife, 
whom he had left for — what ? 

He rubbed his hands over his eyes, as . though 
to brush away some film and see clearly. 

But there was nothing to see ; only the in- 
terminable plain beyond the houses toward the 
east, and the frozen mountains in the west. 

He turned back, and the west was in front 
of him. All the dreary monotony of the life he 
had come from was behind him. What hope 
could the future hide behind that frame of rock, 
draped in never-melting snow? 

“ Harry ! ” 

It was whispered. He did not hear it. Or 
if he heard, he thought the wind rustled the 
leaves. 

“ Harry ! ” 

There was a touch on his shoulder. 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 


95 


“ Annette ! ” 

It was she — Annette. She stood all alone, 
behind him. Her hands were clasped, as if in 
prayer to him. The shawl over her shoulders 
was flung back till one corner drooped upon 
the ground. 

Her eyes — oh, those eyes ! They were turned 
up to him — black, yet consuming as burning 
coals. She looked at him. 

One touch of fire melted a whole Alexandrine 
library filled with the metaphysics and the wis- 
dom of the ages. What were all this poor 
man’s wisdom, and purposes, and affections, 
and earthly life and eternal destiny — when An- 
nette looked at him. 

“ Harry ! ” 

She touched his arm. 

A shudder went through him. So will a 
shudder tremble through the bosom of earth 
when men say there is an earthquake. Earth- 
quakes mean volcanoes. And where are all the 
smiling villages and tall cities that can lift their 
puny hands to stay the tide of a volcano ? 

“ Harry ! ” 

His head dropped. He could not look. She 
slipped her arm in his, and he found himself 
walking further away from the mountains. The 
mountains were big, and hard and cold as ever 
— and as near. 


96 


ONLY A PALMER'S LAUGHTER 


“ Harry, why did you come ? ” 

He could not answer. Was the shiver a 
symptom of alarm ? 

“ You do not seem glad to see me, Harry. 
Yet you must have come here to see me.” 

No answer. 

“ Did you know I was here ? ” 

A moment’s hesitation. Then he answered, 

“ Yes.” 

“Yet I did not know we were to leave New 
York, when you saw me at the Hoffman House. 
I did not know where we were going when 
we left. It is two thousand miles. You are 
only two days behind me — if as much.” 

“ No.” 

“ No ” did not mean anything; but she made 
a pause and it seemed appropriate for him to 
say something, and he said, “ no.” 

They walked on in silence until they came to 
a gas-lamp. There she stopped and looked up 
again, with the light full on his face. 

“ Tell me,” she said, imperatively ; “ why did 
you come ? ” 

His lips moved, and refused to utter a sound. 
He could not tell her — tell Annette why he had 
come. 

“ Harry ! ” 

She clutched his arm till her fingers seemed 
to sink through into the flesh. 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


97 


“ Do you know why Mons. Lebeau left New 
York so suddenly — came so far from New 
York ? ” 

His eyes dropped again. She, as well ashe > 
was excited now. Her fingers beat rapidly 
against his arm. Yet she looked him steadily 
in the eye with something akin to mesmeric 
power ; for he was impelled against his will, to 
answer her look. 

“ Tell me ! Do you know? 

He gasped, 

“ Yes.” 

She covered her face in her hands and trem- 
bled from head to foot. Was it alarm ? or was 
she sobbing ? 

“ Come,” said she, violently seizing him again 
by the arm. “ We must walk. They will see 
us if we stand here and talk. Come ! ” 

They walked further away from the mount- 
ains. 

“You know why he came. You have fol- 
lowed. You, a quiet man, engrossed in family 
cares — happy, quietly happy, in composing books 
at your own fireside — you have left home, and 
wife, and child, and books, and all your life to 
follow this man.” 

She looked at him searchingly. 

“ Are you a hunter of wild game ? Is the 


98 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


smell of blood so maddening to you that you for- 
sake everything and join in the hue and cry, 
and chase in the pack of other hounds, the 
wild beast that never tore your flesh ? You? 
Bah ! ” 

She flung his arm from her so violently as al- 
most to throw him down. 

Then she seized it again in a moment and 
gripped it so close that he cried out with sud- 
den pain. Her lips parted and her eyes gleam- 
ed with a fire that might have been the rage of 
a panther, and might have been a passion of 
love so turbulent that it almost tore her that 
contained it. 

Hate or love may, either of them, be too vio- 
lent to be contained in a human frame. Love, 
especially. And when it rends the strong sin- 
ews that hold it, as a muscular madman will 
twist iron bars, then it ends in one of two things 
— murder or worship. 

Thus near do crime and heaven approach 
each other. 

“No, Harry! You came to save me. You 
came to end for me this horrible chasing up and 
down through the world. Save me, Harry, save 
me ! ” 

The passion expressed in her features be- 
came so terrific that words could not convey it. 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 


99 


She only emitted an inarticulate sound, the 
growl of some wild animal. 

In a moment more she gained words again. 

“ Harry,” she repeated in a deep voice, “ look 
down here at me. Harry, do you” — here she 
clutched his arm and pulled him down towards 
her while she whispered with a stridency that 
was like a hiss — “ do you love me ? ” 

Before he knew what he was going to say, he 
had said, 

“ Yes.” 

She clutched his arm closer, till he could feel, 
as they walked along, that her whole body was 
quivering as though with an ague. 

“ Then, Harry, you will do any thing for me 
— you will save me. Save me ! ” she repeated, 
with a passion of eloquence that would have 
melted an enemy. 

“ Save you, Annette ? How ? ” 

She spoke not a word ; but the look she gave 
him ! He thought in that look was fixed all the 
woman-love of the ages, as all the sun’s glory 
may be concentrated through a burning-glass, 
to devour every existence before it. 

“ Take you from a husband, Annette ? No 
matter what he may have done, is he not yours, 
— yours to defend ? ” 

She might have asked him whether a little 


100 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


Farmer’s Daughter two thousand miles away, 
might not have like claims on one that had left 
her for — what ? 

But she did not. She said simply, 

“ If he had no such claim on me? ” 

“ No such claim ! ” 

A revulsion of feeling seemed to bring him 
to his senses. 

“ Are you not Madame Le — ” 

He could not pronounce the word. 

“ Don’t discuss these things, now, Harry, 
dear,” she said, stroking his hand. “ I can’t 
bear to talk of it all. Never mind him. I will 
ask this one protection for him don’t harm 
him. For, Harry, it — it might harm me. You 
promise ? ” 

“ I will not harm him.” 

If he had come to track Lebeau, he had cross- 
ed the continent in. vain. But had he come for 
this ? 

“ Harry ! ” 

She knew not how to say what was in her 
mind, apparently ; for she hesitated. 

“ Suppose, Harry, that he did deserve my 
protection, once. But suppose he had forfeit- 
ed it. Suppose I discovered, when too late, 
that he was worse than any colors could paint 
him — that no penalty short of taking his life 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


101 


was great enough for his crimes, and that let- 
ting him live was a greater penalty than to kill 
him ! Suppose I recognized that some one — 
that some one, as I believed, had a prior right 
to me. If I should leave him and go to the 
other — would it not — would it not, Harry, be 
right ? Would it not be better than to stay ? ” 

What could he say more than he did say? 
He said, 

« Yes.” 

“ Then, Harry — ’ 

She must have forgotten where she was, but 
it made no difference ; for that part of the town 
was so remote and the hour so late, that none 
were passing. 

She stopped him short and threw both arms 
around him- 

“ Then Harry — let me go with you, anywhere, 
anyhow, as far as you will — only save me, and 
be good to me, and protect me — and — ” 

She raised one beautiful arm toward heaven, 
till her passionate pleading seemed to derive a 
sanctity and an immensity of persuasion — link- 
ing earth to heaven. 

“ God could never have made us to go apart 
and alone from one another.” 

He grew dizzy as he saw and felt her presence, 
and listened to what she asked of him. 


102 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ Will you save me, Harry? 

In a burst of excitement that words were not 
suited to convey, he responded as she had ask- 
ed — by throwing both arms about her and draw- 
ing her tight in his embrace. 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


103 


CHAPTER VII. 

There are mornings after great excitement 
when one awakes with the sensation of having 
been drunken. 

The temples throb ; there is a dizziness in 
rising ; the memory of past occurrences is blunt- 
ed and one gradually comes to the conscious- 
ness of having nearly broken loose from life, 
and there is some bewilderment at being still 
alive. 

Stuart awoke the morning after his arrival 
at Denver and found the sunlight streaming 
warm in at his window. The day had ad- 
vanced some hours from sunrise. 

He lay with his eyes closed. He did not 
seem to have quite courage enough to open 
them. There was a vague presentiment of im- 
pending evil which made him fear to look 
around. 

So he lay quiet for a few moments, while his 
mind groped about and he tried to recollect 


104 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


where he was and what had happened to him. 
Then it all came flooding in over him — what 
he had done— what he had promised to do. 

He seemed to see the dear face two thousand 
miles away — the face of her who trusted him, 
and rocked the little one’s cradle until he should 
come back to her. As he thought of it now, 
all by himself, he loved this good little woman 
very much. 

But what of the other ? Did he — could he 
love her too ? 

Yet he had promised— what? Promised to 
save this other ! To save her meant to go 
with her. Yes; he remembered it all, now. 
He had promised Annette that he would fly 
with her and save her from this man — this Le- 
beau. 

What did he know of Lebeau— or indeed of 
Annette ? He had nothing but suspicions of 
Lebeau. Little more of any substantial nature 
could be said of Annette ; for his whole ac- 
quaintance with her had been crowded into a few 
short weeks in Switzerland. Of her life, before 
or since* he knew no more than she had chosen 
to tell him. Was she wife or mistress of this 
man, Lebeau ? He could not say. 

And he had chosen to elope with this woman 
of whom he knew nothing much, but their 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


105 


mutual passion ! Elope with her and forsake 
his home and all other ties ? 

Never! 

He rose and began hastily dressing. 

He would leave with all possible speed this 
dangerous ground. He would go back to New 

York, and tell Inspector any story that 

came into his head. One thing was certain, 
and that was that he was not fitted for any 
detective business that had relation to Ma- 
dame or Mons. Lebeau. 

He was ready dressed before his disordered 
thoughts so collected themselves that he re- 
membered he was to meet her that afternoon 
and start for Mexico. What he would do was 
to start for New York that very evening and 
never see her again. 

Yet it would be cowardly to leave her with- 
out a word, and he dared not have any personal 
interview with her. The only safe thing to do 
was to send her a note. He sat down at once 
and wrote her as follows : 

“ Annette : — 

“ I dare not fly with you to-night. There 
are many reasons why it would not be safe or 
best. Forgive me that I go away without you. 
It is best. I love you as ever.” 


106 


ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 


He bit the handle of his pen, as he thought 
whether it would be well to say more. Then 
he put his pen to the paper once more and 
subscribed the one word : “ Harry.” He folded 
the paper in an envelope and stamped it. But 
it occurred to him she might get word too 
soon ; so he decided to send it by special mes- 
senger when she would not have time to an- 
swer it in person. 

He was all ready for departure. But a few 
hours must still elapse before the train would 
go. There could surely be no harm in walk- 
ing past the Windsor. He might see her at 
the window, and the fascination she had over 
him was such that he could not go across the 
continent away from her, without taking the 
one remaining chance of seeing her. 

She was at the window as he hoped. A 
tiny hand appeared from behind the window- 
blind and waved a tiny handkerchief toward 
him. He could see the slats turn slightly, and 
felt that two black eyes were looking at him 
from between them. 

He went back to the Brunswick and sent 
the letter by special messenger, as he paid his 
bill and went away, giving the boy strict in- 
structions to deliver the note into Madarne’s 
own hands. 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 107 

Madame read the note without moving a 
muscle. After reading it a second time, she 
said to the boy, whom she had required to 
wait : 

“ Will you take back an answer ? ” 

“To the gentleman that sent the note ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ I can’t,” said the boy, twirling his cap. 

“ Why ? ” 

He hated to say why ; for the prospect of 
taking an answer from this fine lady seemed to 
promise high renumeration for small labor 

“ Why ? ” she repeated, with impatience. 

“ ’Cause, Missis, he’s gone.” 

“ Gone ! Has Mr. — , has the gentleman left 
the city ? ” 

“ Dunno, Missis. All I know is that the 
gentleman give me the note an’ he says, says 
he, ‘ be sure to give it into the lady’s own hands 
herself,’ says he, ‘ an’ don’t let nobody else have 
it,’ says he. And then he said ‘ There’s no an- 
swer.’ That’s all I know, Missis.” 

There was no sign of what she felt, if she felt 
anything, unless it might be a slight compres- 
sion of the lips and a sudden paleness. 

“ It doesn’t matter,” she said, as she closed 
the door in the boy’s face. 

But then, when she was all alone she threw 


108 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

herself on the sofa with her face in the pillows 
and sobbed for a long time, inaudibly. When 
she once more arose, there was an air of deter- 
mination that would have made poor Stuart’s 
fate seem to him hopeless, if he could have 
seen her. But when she reached the depot to 
look for him the train for Omaha was already 
a dozen miles on its way, and whatever designs 
she had, he could not know them. 

If he could have seen, twenty-four hours 
later, a woman with deep black eyes taking the 
same train at the same depot,’ with no other 
attendant than one small and conveniently 
silent travelling-bag — he might have been some- 
what curious and perhaps more uneasy. 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


109 


CHAPTER IX. 

Mother Taft sat on the kitchen piazza peel- 
ing potatoes for dinner. The old hands were a 
little stiff and the fingers rather crooked for 
thirty years of potato-peeling and work of that 
kind. But the duty that lay nearest was the 
one Mother Taft always endeavored to per- 
form ; so she worried very little over the crooks 
in her fingers, for the potatoes had to be peeled 
by somebody, and why not by her as well as by 
any one else ? 

“ Didn’t expect me, did you, mother? ” 

Down went the potato and the knife, splash 
into the water, and Mother Taft held her 
daughter in her arms. 

“ It was real lonesome, Emily. I sot here a 
thinkin’ about you just now, and never had a 
notion you was so near. But where’s the 
boy ? ” 

“ Oh, Harry ? He’s gone on a long journey. 
You know where Denver is? ” 

“ Denver ? No, dear.” 


110 


ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 


“ Well, Denver is two thousand miles away.’’ 

Mother Taft’s two hands went up in a gest- 
ure of astonishment. 

“ Two thousand mild ! ” 

“ Yes, mother.” 

“ And what in the world has he gone off 
there for without you ? ” 

“ It’s a little matter of personal private busi- 
ness, mother. I know about it, but I can’t tell 
now.” 

“ But you’re satisfied its all right for him to 
go so far ? ” 

“ Oh, yes. Only I wish I could have gone 
too. But in that case I shouldn’t have come 
up here.” 

“ No more you wouldn’t. Come right in the 
house now, and get off your things. Father’ll 
be in in a few minutes. There, Mary Ann, 
finish peeling them potatoes. Bless your heart, 
how glad I be to see you ! ” 

It was not long before Farmer Taft came in 
for dinner, and there was more hugging, and 
more exclamations of surprise. Everybody was 
surprised at everything. Surprised that Harry 
had gone so far away, surprised that Emily had 
come up so suddenly to Massachusetts, surprised 
that the baby should look so much like both of 
them, and like grandpa and grandma as well. 


ONLY A FARMER* S DAUGHTER. HI 

And last of all there was a general looking 
about, as though some one was missed. 

“ Joe ! ” called Farmer Taft. “ Joe ! Joe ! ” 

“ I’m on hand,” said a voice from the kitchen 
piazza. 

“ Why, Joe, man, why didn’t you come in ? 
Don’t be hangin’ back. Didn’t ye know Em’ly 
had come home ? ” 

“ Sartin,” said Joe. “ Only I — you see — I 
kinder thought you would jest as leave not be 
disturbed jes’ now.” 

“ Come right in, Joe. You surely haven’t 
forgotten me ? ” 

“ Forgotten you, Mrs. Stuart? Never ! ” 

“ Don’t say ‘ Mrs. Stuart,’ Joe. I always call 
you ‘ Joe.’ Why shouldn’t you always say 
‘Emily?’” 

“ Joe’s bashful, Em’ly,” said Mother Taft. 
“You mustn’t be surprised that he don’t feel 
like callin’ city folks by their first names.” 

It is not the most comforting thing in the 
world to a bashful person in one of his bashful 
moments, to have his bashfulness publicly com- 
mented upon, and to feel a sudden and general 
cessation of conversation, while everybody de- 
votes himself to looking at the bashful man. 
It, consequently, need not be wondered at that 
Joe grew somewhat red in the face, and evinced 


112 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


a stronger desire than ever to adhere to the 
kitchen piazza. 

“ Jes’ come in an’ look at the baby, Joe,” said 
Farmer Taft. “ Youhain’t never seen the baby, 
now, have you ? ” 

The mention of the baby planted a very sud- 
den and firm degree of resolution in Joe’s back- 
bone. He came at once forward boldly to ex- 
amine the baby. He might be thought jealous 
if he should recoil at the sight of this infant 
specimen. Besides, none of them knew how 
fond he had been of Emily, and it was too late 
now. They must not know it unless she should 
sometime need him. She did not yet need 
him. 

So Joe came forward, and chucked the baby 
under the chin, and cackled to it in a way that 
made everybody laugh except the baby itself, 
who stared at him in silent wonder. 

“ Powerful fine-lookin’ youngster, Miss Em’ly. 
Orter be thankful ’twon’t never be a man to 
stiffen these little hands, holdin’ the plow.” 

•‘Well, Joe, we’ll hope that whatever she 
does will be so honorable that she need never be 
ashamed of the hands.” 

“ Which she never could, Miss Em’ly, be- 
longin’ as they do to you.” 

Which was a very delicate compliment from 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


118 


a poor countryman, like Joe. But what he said 
came right out of his heart, and was so truly 
meant, that its simple earnestness it brought 
color to Emily’s cheek. 

Then the hired men came in to their dinner, 
and the bustle and the clatter of plates soon 
drowned the embarrassment that Joe and Emily 
felt in being thus brought together in the 
old home. 

The days passed, one after another, and still 
Emily lengthened her stay in the old home 
among the hills. She grew anxious-looking as 
the time went by. She had staid in New York 
until her husband reached Denver, and was in 
the receipt of letters from him, dropped at dif- 
ferent towns along the road. But when she 
knew he was safe in Denver and might remain 
there for some time, she started up to the home 
of her childhood. 

For the first day or two she was happy, re- 
newing the old associations, and imagining 
herself a girl again, as she had been before 
there was any thought of ever leading any other 
than a country life. But in contrast to the 
peaceful pleasures of the country she thought 
of all the glorious happiness of her new life, and 
was very content with the change. 



114 ONE r A FARMER' S DA UGHTER. 

that she heard no news from her Harry. She 
said nothing of her anxieties ; but she seemed 
very thoughtful as, night after night, the news 
came from the post-office that, whoever else 
might have letters, there were none for her. 

At last one came. It was directed in a 
woman’s handwriting. It was mailed from 
Denver, Colorado. He must surely be ill. 
Otherwise no stranger, least of all a strange 
woman, would have written in his stead. 

Yet for some reason she did not open the 
letter, as she had always opened her letters, in 
the family-room. She put it, sealed, in her 
pocket, and chatted away as though nothing 
was further from her thoughts than the letter. 

But as soon as she could retire to her room 
without attracting too much attention, she did 
so. Then she read and re-read the writing on 
the envelope and turned it over and examined 
the seal. 

She imagined everything that a woman will 
imagine when she receives a letter from an un- 
known correspondent, and tries to divine what 
might prove very easy of interpretation if she 
would only open the envelope and find out what 
it contains. At last, after exhausting every sur- 
mise, she did, as a last resort, break the seal. 

The letter was redolent of rose-water. It 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 115 

contained two pieces of paper. On one was 
written in a feminine hand, these words : 

Dear Madam : — 

“ Feeling that you ought not longer to be 
deceived, I take the liberty of inclosing a piece 
of writing which may prove suggestive. How 
the writing came in my possession matters not 
unless you care to know more. If desirous of 
further knowledge, address “ Valette; New York 
City, Poste Restante.” 

The letter dropped from Emily’s hands. A 
great horror of some unknown, impending evil 
came over her. It was all the more horrible, 
because she knew not what it was or whence it 
came. Her hand trembled so that the other 
scrap of paper, when she attempted to read it, 
fluttered away on the floor. 

Then she noticed that on the other side of 
the note she had just read was a postscript in 
these words : 

“ In case you wish to know more, you will, 
in token of your sincerity, return to me the in- 
closed paper.” 

She stooped and felt along the floor for the 
paper, which had fluttered away. Her heart 
fluttered as if it too were but a slender, frail 


116 ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 

thing that a little gust of air would blow away 
into nowhere. After some time she found 
the paper under the bed. Clutching it in 
her hand she tottered back to the light. 

Should she dare look at it ? The loneliness 
of having a great question to decide and no- 
body to help her decide it, was more than she 
could bear up under. She almost fainted with 
the excitement. But, finally, she drew the 
candle bodily forward near her elbow and 
opened the paper — opened it quickly, as if she 
feared she might not be strong enough to open 
it unless she took herself by surprise. 

This second paper contained these words : 

“ Annette : — 

I dare not fly with you to-night. There are 
many reasons why it would not be safe or best. 
Forgive me that I go away without you. It is 
best. I love you as ever. 

, “ Harry.” 

Her Harry ! For it was her own husband’s 
writing. Written to some woman and not to 
his wife ! 

The walls of the room went round and round. 
The candle, and the old chest of drawers, and 
the big spare-bed with its massive corner-posts, 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


117 


and the sewing-chair, and the stools, and every- 
thing else in the room seemed to hold high 
carnival, and all to dance under and over one 
another to the sound of ringing bells and rush- 
ing waters. 

Emily seized this bit of paper — this writing 
which must be her Harry’s, closed her hand so 
tightly around it that no one could have got it 
or read it if she had been found. Then she 
fell from her chair on the floor. 


118 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


CHAPTER X. 

When Harry Stuart saw the lights of Den- 
ver fade out in the plain behind him, and not 
till then, he felt safe. For an hour or more he 
looked up with alarm every time the door of 
the car opened. This woman w 7 as so resolute, 
that he half feared she would discover where 
he had gone, and catch the same train with 
him. 

But he went peacefully to sleep, for no one 
came to disturb him. 

In his excited condition he had not felt like 
rushing straight home to New York. It seemed 
to him that he would need a breathing-time. 
Besides, he did not like to go straight home 
and be put through a course of questioning by 
the Inspector. He must have time to recover 
from his excitement and think out a course 
of action. — All he wanted now was to get 
away from Annette. 

So he bought his ticket for Omaha, and 
went to sleep with a sense of freedom, now 
that he had gone, Annette knew not where. 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER . 


119 


The train had left Denver but a few mo- 
ments when a woman entered the Union Rail- 
way depot. 

She was a stranger. That was evident from 
the exploring way in which she went about the 
platform and peered through the doors. 

She did not care to attract attention. That 
was evident from her wearing a thick veil and 
asking no questions. 

She finally discovered what she must have 
been looking for ; for she went straight to the 
ticket window and asked when the next train 
left for Chicago. 

“ Train went fifteen minutes ago, madam. 
No other train till to-morrow morning.” 

“ Ah.” 

It was a despondent tone in which she said 
it. She was not satisfied, but did not seem to 
know how she ought to put further questions. 

“ Did a gentleman with a light leather bag 
buy a ticket to go on the train this evening ? ” 

“ Pretty hard telling, ma’am. Several gentle- 
men bought tickets. Guess they all had bags. 
Shouldn’t wonder if they some of ’em had light 
leather ones.” 

“ This was a tall gentleman. He had curly 
black hair.” 

u Dunno.” 


120 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


“ You don’t remember ? ” 

“ Lemme see. Jim! Hey there! D’you 
have your eyes open when the tickets were sold 
for seven-thirty train.” 

“ Generally do have my eyes open ; else how 
would I know if they made the right change ? ” 
“ Git out ! Answer me a civil question. 
D'you see who tire passengers were or what 
any of ’em looked like ? ” 

“Hm — shouldn’t wonder.” 

“ D’you see any gentlemen with long red 
hair — red hair was it, mum ? ” 

“ Curly black hair ! ” 

“ Yes, I did. Curly black hair. Little 
yellow bag that he set down close to his hand 
while he counted out the change. Was horri- 
ble nervous and asked me in a crazy sort of 
way, how much was the fare to Omaha. Looked 
around when he said ‘ Omaha,’ as though 
he expected somebody might hear him that 
hadn't oughter.” 

“ He bought a ticket for Omaha, you say ? ” 
“ Yezzum.” 

“ Thank you ! ” 

“ Do’ mention it.” 

“ The morning train for Chicago leaves what 
time, do you say ? ” 

“ Eight-thirty. Goes by way of Omaha,” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


121 


“ I think I will get a ticket to-night.” 

“ Chicago ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Yezzum.” 

“ Wait a moment; I can stop over at any 
town on the way I suppose ? ” 

“ Most any of any size, mum, — Omaha, for 
instance.” 

She made no reply ; but tossed down a bill, 
without stopping to ask the price of the ticket. 
It was a soft, white hand, with jewels on it that 
would have bought a passage around the world. 

“Jim,” said one ticket-seller to the other, after 
the lady had gone away, “ wha’ d’ye think?” 

“ D’no. ’Lopement, I guess.” 

“ That the wife ? ” 

“ Guess not. She don’t belong ’round here. 
Besides — well, I dunno, she’s a mighty pretty 
woman anyhow, if the hand’s a sample of the 
face.” 

Mr. Henry Stuart in due time arrived at the 
twin city which on one bank of the river calls 
itself Council Bluffs, while it looks down upon 
itself lying on the other side of the river under 
the name of Omaha. 

He walked about Omaha and walked over 
the river and along the Bluffs, and then walk- 
ed back again, the first day. By taking these 


122 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


long walks and thus tiring himself quite out, he 
was able to forget his predicament when night 
came, and to fall asleep like a child. 

Consequently he awoke very much refreshed 
the next morning, and a deal clearer in his head. 
The remoteness of danger, both in space and 
in time, takes away much of its awfulness. 
He could see, this second morning, as he sat 
eating his breakfast, that he had done a very 
sensible thing, under all the circumstances, in 
getting away from Annette. 

He would, no doubt, have a rather lame time 
of it explaining to the Inspector where he 
had been and why he had wasted his time. 
But there was no help for it, and he would 
start home that very night — home to Emily. 

The world looked very peaceful to him, and 
everything that mortals have to do seemed very 
easy to him, as he ate his second breakfast in 
Omaha. He thought he would take one more 
little walk to settle his breakfast'; then he would 
pay his bill and start along over the river. 

When he came back and asked for his key, 
he was told Madam had it up stairs. Think- 
ing that Madam was a rather dignified title for 
a chamber-maid, he nevertheless went up to 
his room, trusting to find “ Madam ” in the hall- 
way and hear an explanation from her as to 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 123 

now her pass-key should not have been enough, 
without taking his own key. 

“ Annette ! ” 

There she stood in his room. Her little travel- 
ling bag lay on the floor at her feet. Her cloak 
was tumbled about her shoulders and crumpled 
as though she had slept in it. She had risen as 
she heard him open the door. She stood in 
silence, with arms outstretched and parted lips. 

“ For God’s sake, Annette, what are you do- 
ing here ? ” 

She gasped as though trying to speak, but 
the words would not come. 

“ Annette, did you not get my letter — the 
letter I wrote you in Denver.” 

She gasped again, then whispered : 

“ Yes.” 

He looked the question he did not ask. 

“ But, Harry, I could not stay. I should 
die. Kill me, Harry; but don’t , don't, send me 
away.” 

Stuart bit his lips. He had still sufficient 
self-control, not to touch her, not to respond to 
this wflld passion of hers. 

“ Annette, how did you get into this room ? ” 

“ They gave me the key.” 

“ You, a stranger ? ” 

“ I told them you would doubtless be in soon, 
as you expected me.” 


124 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ And they gave you the key on any such 
pretext as that.’' 

“ But — forgive me, Harry. I signed myself 
in the register, ‘ Mrs. Stuart.’ ” 

The red blood mounted to his cheek. The 
passion of long ago had almost subdued him in 
these meetings with her. Her emotion was so 
deep, and seemed so genuine, and there was 
.somethingso mesmeric and irresistibly fascinat- 
ing in her very presence, that he had not felt 
any chance of safety short of absolute separa- 
tion from her. 

But now — now she had gone further than 
even he could endure. With one rude blow 
she had shattered the idol. 

“ Do you dare, Mrs. Lebeau, to present your- 
self at a public hotel in a city as my wife? ” 

He looked her full in the face, with flashing 
eyes, and face as forbidding as the cliffs that 
looked down opposite upon the Missouri. 

“ Harry ! ” 

“ Well ! ” 

“ Don’t look at me so. What could I do ? 
I came to you, not knowing what I should say 
when I came. You were not in. I did the 
first thing that occurred to me. I must see 
you, at once and alone, and I knew not what 
else to say than what I did. Forgive me, 
Harry.” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 125 

He made no reply, but looked, apparently, to 
see if she would say more. 

“ And, Harry, I will stay very quietly till we 
— till you go away. There are two rooms that 
you have, I see. The parlor or the bedroom 
as you please will be well enough for me.” 

His lip curled as he looked at her. But he 
said nothing, only began collecting his toilet 
articles and packing them in his bag. 

“ Harry, speak to me. What do you mean ? ” 

She touched his arm, and he shook her off, 
almost angrily. 

“ Don’t touch me ! ” 

“Good God, Harry, would you drive me from 
you ? Speak to me ! Look kindly at me. 
Don’t, oh, don’t go away from me ! ” 

“ Listen, Madame Lebeau. Once I loved 
you. At least I think I did. The very touch 
of your hand, the pressure of your warm lips 
drove me insane. Perhaps it was not love. 
Perhaps it was madness. 

“ Years passed by, in which I was away from 
you. I met you again, having meantime mar- 
ried. I found you married. The old dream 
came back in all its bewilderment. I was 
overcome. When I knew what you know that 
I know about Mons. Lebeau, I came to Denver 
— no matter why. 


126 ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 

“At Denveryou forced from me the promise 
— I know not how — that I would take you away 
from him. When I realized the crime I should 
have committed, I took leave of you in the 
most delicate way I could think of — You have 
pursued me — You have dared publish yourself 
as — my wife.” 

After these passionate utterances, which were 
often choked off till they became nearly inaud- 
ible, he turned his back on her and completed 
the preparations for his departure. She sank 
back into the chair from which she had arisen, 
and watched him silently. 

He soon turned to go. She rose and cast 
one last appealing look upon him. 

“ Harry.” 

He stopped and waited for her to say more. 

“ Will you grant me one last favor before 
you go ? ” 

“ What is it ? ” 

“ Kiss me.” 

He could not have helped it, if he had lost 
bis soul for doing it. The old passion, unac- 
countable as it was, even repulsive, as he surely 
felt it to be, was not dead. He turned toward 
her, and she flung herself on his neck and kissed 
him as only a woman of wild, stormy passions 
can kiss. 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


127 


CHAPTER XI. 

When Emily went home suddenly to New 
York, they dared not let her go alone. What 
was the matter, nobody could tell. She be- 
came all at once overwhelmed with some kind 
of sorrow. No one could get a word of ex- 
planation out of her. All she would say was, 
that she must go home. 

All at once, they remembered that her strange 
melancholy began one evening after she had 
received a letter. But what the letter contained, 
or whether there was any connection between 
it and her state of mind, was only to be con- 
jectured. The cause of her sorrow these rough 
sons of the plow were too sensitive, too delicate 
to inquire. 

Emily’s mother did, indeed, stroke the soft 
hair back from her daughter’s temples and 
look inquiringly at the drooping eyes ; but 
even she forbore to avail herself of a mother’s 
intimacy. When she saw that Emily did not, 


128 


ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 


of her own accord explain, she waited herself, 
and said nothing. 

And when Emily said she must go home to 
New York, no one suggested that she should 
remain in the country until Harry’s return. 
They would not disturb her with questions, 
but when they knew she was really going the 
next day, and had gone early to her room on 
plea of headache and of being very tired, they 
resolved themselves into a caucus and talked 
over the situation. 

“ I tell ye what, mother,” said Farmer Taft. 
“ I’m afear’d she goin’ to be sick. She’d never 
act this ’ere way, ’nless she was ailin’.” 

But mother shook her head. 

“ She ain’t sick in body, Isaac, I feel sure o’ 
that. There’s somethin’ more serious the mat- 
ter. She was cheerful an’ chipper right along 
every day till one evenin’ she got bad all of a 
sudden.” 

“ What ever kin it be, then, mother ? ” 

“Did you remember, Isaac, ’t she got some 
strange letter that evenin’ that she was took 
Fad ? She’d ben expectin’ news from Harry 
and hadn’t had no news for some days.” 

“ Queer gal, to think he must write ’er every 
one of his born days ! ” 

“ Yes, Isaac, but he got her into bad habits 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


129 


by writin’ every day always when he wasn’t to 
home, an’ so she looked for ’em very nat’ral. 
But what puzzles me, Isaac, is this, an’ that is 
that the letter she got that night wa’n’t from 
him” 

“ Wa’n't it, though, mother? How d’ye 
know that ? ” 

“ You brought it home didn’t ye, Joe? ” 

“Yes’m, I brought it an’ I noticed it wasn’t 
Mr. Stuart's handwritin’.” 

“ So you think you know his handwrit’n, eh, 
Joe ? ” 

“ Yezzur, I do. An’ why shouldn’t I know 
it, when I’ve brought her home so many a 
letter, one every day, with the same handwrit’n 
onto it ? ” 

“ Joe, if you wa’n’t the best an’ kindest- 
hearted fellow in the world, I’d almost think 
sometimes ’t you was jealous o’ Emily’s hus- 
band. Ha-ha ! ” 

“ Don’t laugh at me, Mr. Taft. They aint a 
a jealous streak in all my natur’. But when 
IVe known a gal ever sence she was big enough 
to toddle, an’ seen ’er grow up the likeliest 
gal in the whole county, and known ’er to be 
so good an’ lovely that if I’d ben the only 
young fellow around and she wasn’t too good 
fer me I’d almost a fell in love with her — why 


130 ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 

then, Mr. Taft, ef she gets a husband, can’t I 
be ’xcused if I’m a bit anxious ’t he should love 
her as he oughter, and be very good to ’er ? 
An’ ain’t it the most nat’ral thing in the world 
that I should git acquainted with ’is handwritin’ 
when he does write to her every day, an’ notice 
it when she don’t get any letter from him for a 
week ? ” 

“ Yes, Joe, you’re a kind-hearted fellow, an’ 
’u’d go through fire an’ water fer Emily, an’ 
kill any man that wasn’t kind to ’er, I do be- 
lieve.” 

“ But that ain’t tellin’ what’s the matter with 
Mrs. Stuart now, Mr. Taft.” 

“No, Joe; that’s so,” said Farmer Taft, 
clasping his hands across his knee, and beating 
his knee with the ends of his fingers. 

“ An’ what’s more, Isaac, I don’t see how 
we’re goin’ to find out anything at all about it. 
All I’ve got to say about it is that I do feel 
awful uneasy ’bout lettin’ Emily go back to the 
city all alone, with nobody but the baby.” 

Isaac’s fingers would move vigorously than 
ever, as he strove to think out how Emily was 
to go back to the city and not go all alone with 
the baby. 

“ Isaac.” 

“ Wall, mother, what is it ? ” 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


131 


I couldn’t be spared nohow, to go off the 
farm jest now, there’s no end o’ things to be 
done around in the house.” 

She paused, but there was no other reply 
than the ticking of the clock. Then she said 
again : 

“ But, Isaac, there’s three men about the 
farm to do one man’s work at this time o’ year. 
S’pos’n you should make some excuse ’n’ go 
down with ’er, Isaac.” 

Isaac scratched his head vigorously. He 
had never been able to persuade himself that it 
would be safe for him to go to New York. The 
pitfalls for unwary countrymen were so deep 
and so very numerous — at least he had heard 
so down at the post-office, and read so in the 
village newspaper — that he was quite overcome 
with the suggestion that he should go to New 
York. 

“ I’ll tell ye how, Mr. Taft ; I was there once 
for three days,” said Joe. “ Let’s all go down 
together, an’ I’ll show ye around. 

“ Joe, it’s a bargain. You ’n’ I’ll go down to 
York, an’ we ll see the sights, eh, Joe ? ” 

The old man unearthed from some unex- 
plored recess of his nature a sense of the ludic- 
rous, and at the thought of going about New 
York with Joe, seeing the sights, he burst into 


132 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


a loud laugh, which was summarily checked by 
Mrs. Taft. 

“ Sh-h-h ! Isaac ! Don't ye know the dear 
girl has gone to sleep ? We mustn’t wake her.” 

Then they all drew their chairs closer to- 
gether, and discussed the preliminaries — what 
old clothes they could get together, and how 
they could make them presentable. 

Mr. Taft was quite sure his broadcloth trous- 
ers that he had gone to meeting in for the past 
seven years, would be quite royal. 

“ The legs be a little short, Isaac,” said Mrs. 
Taft, “but I guess I can let’em out a little 
’round the bottom. Ye see, it was a fustrate 
pair to begin on, but they’ve got drawn up a 
little by swellin’ out at the knees.” 

“And,” said Joe, “you know the two yaller 
silk handkerchers ? ” 

“To be sure, Joe, we can each wear one 
around our necks.” 

“ Very much obliged to you, I’m sure.” 

“ But, mother, what ’d I better do for coat 'n’ 
vest ? ” 

“ Wall, Isaac, the long coat that you had 
made nine years ago this winter, is jest as good 
as new, barrin’ one or two grease-spots an’ a 
little shiny-like behind the shoulders. But I 
can clean it up.” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DA TIGHTER. 


133 


“Yes, Mr. Taft,” said Joe, “and there’s the 
buff vest you got for the vveddin’, when Miss 
Emily was married. With such a suit o’ coat, 
pants an’ vest as that, you’re fit to call on the 
President.” 

“ Wall, now, mother, I am fitted out real well, 
ain’t I ? ” said Mr. Taft. 

Mother looked quite satisfied, as she turned 
over the garments which she had brought out 
of the closet while the conversation was going 
on, and thought how she could rub them up 
into something quite elegant. 

“ But,” said she, turning to Joe, “ what’ll you 
do?” 

“ Wall, Mrs. Taft, I’ve got — don’t you remem- 
ber the long silk hat I got to go to the weddin’ 
in ? A tall hat’s always in fashion in the city, so 
I’ve heard.” 

“ That’s a fact, Joe. With the tall hat and 
one o’ father’s yellow silk handkerchers to put 
around your neck, I guess you’ll do.” 

Mrs. Taft examined him critically and calcu- 
lated what the effect would be on Joe, all dress- 
ed up in the same tall hat with which he went 
to her daughter’s wedding some years ago, and 
one of father’s yellow silk handkerchiefs wound 
gracefully about his brown neck ; and it must 
be confessed there was some lingering regret 


134 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


that Emily had not chosen this sturdy young 
nobleman of the soil, instead of the fly-away 
fellow that came from the city, and kept his 
hands white to write books with. 

Emily did not receive with any great enthu- 
siasm the proposition that father and Joe should 
be allowed to go down in her company, to stroll 
about town for a while, and see whatever was 
was wonderful. Nor did she show any reluc- 
tance to accept their company. Her thoughts 
had very little to do with father or with Joe ; 
yet it was somewhat comforting to feel that she 
was not going off alone. If she had been asked 
her opinion of father in old clothes, and buff 
vest and yellow handkerchief, or of Joe in anti- 
quatedly fashionable hat, with similar neck 
attire, she would probably have been surprised 
at herself to discover that she had no opinion 
whatever. 

So they all went down on the night boat to- 
gether — Emily and the baby, and father and 
Joe. 

Emily was very quiet and sad the next morn- 
ing, when they got off the boat in New York, 
The poor girl had no thought of the entertain- 
ment afforded the people around the wharf at 
the sight of her and her body-guard. 

They walked up the long wharf, one on each 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


135 


side of her. They felt that being a woman all 
alone, she somehow needed protection, and that 
with Joe on the left hand and father on the 
right hand, no harm could possibly come to her. 
It was nothing to them that Joe’s archaic hat 
and father’s voluminous trousers, and the two 
yellow neckerchiefs, excited smiles. 

They knew that they were taking care of 
Emily and that by sticking very close to her 
they would save their own selves from getting 
lost ; and in view of these cogent reasons, they 
suffered nothing and nobody to separate them 
from Emily. 

And few were the hours of that week when 
Emily could detach herself from either of them 
and almost never from both. Together they 
rambled up and down Broadway and Fifth 
Avenue, climbed to the top of the buildings 
down town, clambered over High Bridge and 
promenaded in the Park. For now that they 
had come all the long way down from Massa- 
chusetts to be with her and keep her from being 
lonely, she felt under some obligation to enter- 
tain them by showing them whatever there was 
to see in the big city. 

But there were times in the day when Emily 
would go away by herself, and when she appeared 
again her eyes would be red with — perhaps 


136 


ONLY A FARMERS DAUGHTER. 


tears. At night, too, it seemed that she would 
never go to sleep. 

Joe and the old man occupied the room next 
to her; for the old man and Joe did not want to 
be separated from each other, and neither would 
have felt easy to be very far from the sound of 
Emily's voice. 

So the two men, who had been accustomed 
to fall asleep in their beds at home before nine 
o’clock, would sit here until two and three in 
the morning, and watch the light around 
Emily’s door. For they could not sleep until 
they knew she slept. They would sit there in 
the darkness that she might not know they 
were awake, and when at last the brightness 
around the sides of the door and through the 
keyhole went suddenly out, they would whisper 
to each other, — 

“ She’s gone to bed now ; we can sleep, 
too.” 

Then they would noiselessly creep into their 
own bed and sleep. But the slightest sound in 
her room would waken them. 

Thus the two faithful souls guarded her by day 
and by night, and the sentinels were just as faith- 
ful as if she had known they were protecting her. 

But what worried the good men most was 
the sorrow she seemed to derive out of the 


ONLY A FARMER'S DA U Gill Eli. 


137 


letters she received and wrote. They ventured 
once or twice to make some inquiry about 
Harry, but she seemed not to hear the allusion. 
After that they did not mention his name ; but 
they looked at each other, as though they could 
say volumes on the subject to each other, if 
they chose to speak. 

Finally, as they sat in their room one even- 
ing, they got into a serious discussion as to 
whether they had not better go home, and 
whether they dared go home and leave her 
here, growing every day more despondent. 

“ Joe, I, really now, I dassentgo off an’ leave 
her this way. S’pos’n she should, all of a sud- 
den go daft. What’s goin’ to hinder her makin’ 
way 'th herself ? I’m afraid of her, Joe.” 

“ What I want to know, Mr. Taft, is where 
that husband o’ hers ’s gone to. An’ I want to 
know why he don’t come back, and when he is 
cornin’ back.” 

“ Joe, that’s jes’ what I’ve been a thinkin’ on 
on fer many a day. On’y I didn’t know where 
your mind was about it, an’ I didn’t want to ex- 
cite any suspicions in your mind ’thout any 
foundation. 

“That’s right, Mr. Taft. But we might jest 
as well look the thing squar’ in the eye. ’Xcuse 
my speakin’ plainly, Mr. Taft, fer its about none 
o’ my affairs that I’m speakin’.” 


138 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ Sartain, Joe. No mealy mouths about it, 
while we talk the thing over together. We 
come down here to be of any sarvice we could 
to her, an’ now we must do the best we can, an’ 
we can do a good deal better by speakin’ right 
out to each other.” 

“ Wall, than, if you’ll ’xcuse me for takin ’t 
on myself to speak so free, Mr. Taft, I really 
am very much afraid there’s somethin’ wrong 
along o’ Miss Emily and her husband.” 

“ S’pos’n they is, Joe, what is it? What is 
it?” 

“ That’s what we don’t know, Mr. Taft. 
An’ Miss Em’ly’s too proud to tell us about it, 
if there is any trouble.” 

“ What be we goin’ to do about it, then ? ” 

“ That’s jest where I don’t feel clear, Mr. 
Taft. But if there’s any way to find out, I don’t 
like to go home till I’ve found out what it is, 
an’ how r I’m goin’ to help her.” 

“ Pity she couldn’t’ a’ fell in love along of 
you, Joe.” 

Joe colored a very deep red. The tan of his 
cheeks had begun to pale slightly in a week of 
city life, so that the blushes stood out conspicu- 
ously on his honest face. 

“ No, Mr. Taft, I was always too rough ’n’ un- 
couth for her. I was fond of her, though. I 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


129 


needn’t be ashamed to mention that now, to 
you. She never knew how much I cared about 
her. An’ when he came, an’ I saw it would be 
all up with me, even if I ever had had a chance, 
I made myself one promise and I said it to her. 
I said to her, ’t if she ever needed any help ’t I 
could give her, I’d give it.” 

Farmer Taft made a dab at his cheek. So 
unmanly a thing as a tear could never have got 
lost on his cheek. Oh, no ! So he brushed 
away whatever it was that felt like a tear, and 
was so overcome by the effort that he dared not 
look at Joe for a moment afterward. 

But after a little pause he reached out his 
hand and pressed Joe’s hand in silence. 

There was a tap at the door, Joe opened it. 

“ Missus would like to talk with you a few 
minutes in the parlor.” 

“ Me, alone ? ” 

“ She said you.” 

“ I’ll be back pretty soon, Mr. Taft.” 

She was sitting with her back toward him 
as he entered. Her hair had become partially 
loosened and a lock of it had fallen in silken 
majesty over the back of the low chair. Joe 
could scarcely restrain himself from going up 
behind the chair and taking it in his fingers. 

The gas-light shone down over her head. 


140 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


She must have been reading letters ; for several 
letters were scattered over her lap and on 
the floor. Joe thought she had tired of reading 
them and had, perhaps, fallen asleep while 
waiting for him. 

He cleared his throat, very much as he did 
in the old school-house when he used to make 
a few remarks at the weekly prayer-meetings. 

“ Is that you, Joe ? ” 

What a weary sound, and how unlike the 
light, bounding voice that used to greet him 
among the Berkshire Hills ! 

“ You sent for me, Miss Em’ly.” 

“ Did I ? Oh, yes ; I believe I cTid. Well, 
I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” 

“ Didn’t you want to see me, then ? ” 

“ Yes, Joe, it always rests me to see you. 
You are very good and kind to me, you and 
father.” 

Joe blushed over every visible corner of his 
face, and was glad he stood behind her where 
she could not see him. 

“ Only, Joe, you don’t need to follow me 
around too carefully and watch me. I shall 
not harm myself, Joe.” 

The voice died away, and as she covered her 
face with her hands, she shook in such a man- 
ner that Joe knew she was sobbing. 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


141 


He grew suddenly bold and came around in 
front and sat down near her. 

“ Mrs. Stuart — Miss Em’ly, I mean. May I 
speak right out ? ” 

She choked out the one word : 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then, Miss Em’ly, let me say this. I’m 
one of the sincerest hearted friends you’ve got ; 
an’ I told you once, Miss Em’ly,” ( here it was 
Joe’s turn to choke a little) “ ’t if you ever need- 
ed a friend in all the future, you was to call on 
me. An’ I — I don’t think it’s the squar’ thing 
to be pinin’ away here like all this, an’ breakin’ 
your good old pa’s heart with worryin’ ’bout 
you, when mebbe if you’d only let me know an’ 
talk a bit free along o' me — mebbe, Miss Em’ly, 
I could help you along a bit.” 

Poor Joe got almost lost in his struggle to 
open a little entrance into Emily’s confidence. 
He sank back in his chair, quite frightened at 
himself that he should have ventured to say 
anything like so much. But the frank words 
out of his heart seemed to awaken a new con- 
fidence in her. She dropped her hand and 
looked at him, as though she must see before 
she spoke, whether he meant what he had said. 

“ Joe you are an honest man, and you have 
good, sound sense. I’m afraid I did wrong in 


142 ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 

not asking you to help me before. But Joe — ’ 
(here she looked around toward the door, to 
see if they were alone), “ Joe, if I am frank 
with you, will you keep it all to yourself ? Will 
you help me so that I may know what is best 
to do, and will you keep all sorrow about me 
from dear old father and mother ? ” 

Joe lifted his right hand as he remembered 
to have once seen a witness do in court, and 
with a solemn face said : 

“ Swelp me ! ” 

“ Then, Joe, let me read you these letters.” 

Joe was all attention. 

“ Oh, but I cannot read them,” she said, 
bursting into an uncontrollable sob. 

“ Then let me read ’em, Miss Em’ly.” 

“ Shut the door, Joe, and let me tell you the 
story — the story that humiliates me, only to 
dream that it may be — and O, Joe, it must be 
true ! ” 

“ Control yourself, now, do, Miss Em'ly, an’ 
tell me all about it, an’ we’ll come out of it all 
right, whatever it is ; I know we will.” 

Joe’s simple, confident way of looking at 
things had its effect on her. Left all by her- 
self the burden was so heavy that she could 
feel it crushing her. But now, as she looked 
into Joe’s straightforward face, and heard him 


ONL Y A FA TIMER' S 1)A UG TITER. 1 43 

say it would come out all right, she almost be- 
lieved that what he said was true, and that her 
troubles were over. 

Then she showed him the letters which she 
had received from this unknown woman named 
“ Valette,” and told him how she had answered 
them. Joe listened very quietly, only once 
opening his lips to remark that he “ didn’t think 
much of folks that wrote letters ’thout signin’ 
their names to ’em.” 

The general purport of all these letters was 
that Harry Stuart was unfaithful to the good 
little woman in New York, and was traveling 
about the Western States with the wife of a 
French adventurer. The last letter of all inti- 
mated that they were just about starting for 
Detroit, where they had a room already en- 
gaged and were to spend a week in each other’s 
society. And this woman who called herself 
“ Valette ” urged Mrs. Stuart to come to Detroit, 
under an assumed name, of course, and learn 
the truth for herself. 

“ And, O, Joe, what, what can I ever do 
about it ? ” 

Joe sat a few moments, and scratched his 
head. 

“ Wall, Miss Em’ly,” said he at last, s’pos’n 
you should go ? ” 

“ Do you really think it would be well and 
prudent, Joe ? ” 


144 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ Dunno why not.” 

The atmosphere was clearer to her after 
these few plain words from Joe. 

“ I believe you may be right, Joe. But I 
was bewildered. I knew not what to do. It 
seemed so mean, so unworthy of me, to be sus- 
pecting him — to be following him about and 
trying to find out whether he was doing me 
some great wrong. For he was always very, 
very good to me, Joe.” 

“ Alt the more reason for provin’ that this 

woman lies, Miss Em’ly” and he added to 

himself, “ if she does.” 

“ Then, Joe, I will go, and set my mind for- 
ever at rest from those horrible suspicions. 
And oh, if I do find him there, and innocent, 
I will go down on my knees before him and beg 
him to forgive me.” 

She clasped her hands and looked upwards 
while the tears rained down her cheeks, as though 
the clouds of sorrow were pouring down rain in 
her eyes. 

“ But, Joe,” she said after a moment, “how 
dare I go away off there alone ? And I could 
never tell any of this horrid dream to dear, 
old father.” 

Joe cleared his throat and seemed anxious to 
say something without exactly knowing how to 
say it. 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER 14a 

“ Mis3 Em’ly, don’t be offended ’long o’ me, 
if you don’t like what I’m goin’ to suggest to 
you; but, Miss Em’ly, you know what I prom- 
ised you once — that if ever you needed a friend 
to call on me.” 

“ Now it seems to me if yer ever goin’ to need 
a friend, it’s right now. So, Miss Em’ly, — for- 
give me for suggestin’ it, if you don’t think it 
best — ,but, if you don’t mind, I should be a’most 
happy to go along, too, and shelter ye from 
harm.” 

She looked gratefully at him and said, while 
her face showed a deeper gratitude than could 
be expressed in words : 

“ Thank you very much, Joe. If you will go 
along to protect and advise me, I will go. I 
am very weak and helpless in this big world, 
and I should never dare go there all alone.” 

“ And now, Miss Em’ly, let’s see what we shall 
do with Mr.Taft.” 

“ I would never dare tell him the truth. Be- 
sides, it would be cruel to tell him, if my sus- 
picions are ill-founded.” 

“ This is what we’ll do, Miss Em’ly ; We’ll 
tell him we — that is, you, have got to go out 
West on very important business, an’ you das- 
sent go alone, an’ I’ve agreed to go long an’ 
take care on you.” 


10 


146 ONLY A FARMER’S DAtIGUTER. 

“ Shall we tell him frankly this much — that 
I am going to join Harry? ” 

“ No, I wouldn’t say quite so strong as that, 
’cause mebbe.you know — look here, Miss Em’ly, 
why not say that you hope Harry can meet you 
an’ come back with you, but you dassent go out 
alone for fear sumthin’ might happen ? ” 

They told this little story, — true, yet having 
the same effect as though it were untrue, be- 
cause of what it did not tell. 

Farmer Taft was greatly puzzled, and shook 
his head many times. He was sure they were 
concealing something from him. What it might 
be he could not guess ; but he felt that it must 
be something which nearly concerned his Emilv. 

“ Wall,” said he, “ God bless ye and take care 
on ye. I wouldn’t feel safe if anybody else was 
goin’ with you. Joe’s a good boy, an’ ’ll take 
good care on ye an’ bring ye home safe an’ 
sound.” 


ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 


147 


CHAPTER XII. 

When Harry Stuart left Omaha, after the 
exciting and unexpected scene with Madame 
Lebeau, he felt as though a rope with a heavy 
weight at the end of it had been hanging about 
his neck, and that an additional weight had just 
been added to it. 

What mysterious power this woman had over 
him, he could not define. He certainly had not 
toward her the feeling of a man toward a woman, 
that is called “ love.” He loathed and despised 
her. He would gladly never see her again on 
earth, unless he could look on her in her coffin 
and feel sure she could never come out of it. 

Yet when she opened her arms to him and 
bade him come, though it was at the moment 
when he felt most bitterly toward her, he could 
not help doing what she asked — come to her 
and take her in his arms. 

“ Perhaps,” said he to himself, “ it is pity for 
her. And, on my soul, I am sorry for a woman 
that is so desperately in love with a man as she 


148 ONLY A FARMER' S DAUGHTER. 

seems to be with me, and under such circum- 
stances.” 

When he fled from her at Omaha, he did 
not know what he was about or where he was 
going. As he gradually came to his senses on 
the train, it occurred to him to inquire of him- 
self where he was going when he bought his 
ticket. He found he had a ticket for Chicago. 

So he went on to Chicago. There he wan- 
dered about for a day, and felt more at home. 
This great city, growing ever, like a young 
giant, until it has far outstripped most other 
cities that are older and all others that are not 
older — this great and bustling city, in the 
manners of its people ; in the rush, and scram, 
ble, and never-ending worry of its business; 
in the magnitude of its interests ; and in its 
general aspect, is more like New York than any 
other of the cities of the Union. 

No wonder, then, that Harry Stuart drew 
a long breath as he looked around him in 
Chicago. 

“ But,” said he, “ I must not stay here. If 
she is going to follow me, she will surely come 
straight here. And I dare not yet go home. 
I must stay away long enough to give some 
semblance of plausibility to the excuses I am 
going to render. I will go where she will never 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


149 


think of following me — I will go to Detroit and 
stay there a few days.” 

A convenient train for Detroit did not leave 
for some hours after he thought of going there. 
He spent the intervening time in such places as 
he thought she would never find him in — down 
in a tunnel under the river, or along the 
wharves. 

At Detroit he settled down comfortably, and 
felt secure. This sense of secure deepened 
as three and four days passed and no one came 
to disturb him. 

He was ashamed of himself and greatly an- 
noyed that he had not written home to Emily. 
He had prepared a hasty note before leaving 
Denver, telling her that he might be away from 
the city for some little time in quarters where 
post-office communication was infrequent, and 
she must therefore not be surprised if she did 
not hear more from him for a while. 

This letter he had stupidly forgotten to mail 
before leaving Denver, and he did not dare 
write from the other places where he had been. 

“ Nevermind,” said he, “ we will drop in very 
suddenly some morning, and gladden her dear 
little heart with our unexpected return.” 

Meantime the days went by without his be- 
ing disturbed by any more signs of the exist- 


150 


ONLY A PALMER'S DAUGHTER. 


ence of Madame Lebeau. If he could have 
known the condition of mind which Emily was 
passing through and all the circumstances of 
Joe and Mr. Taft’s visit to New York, he might 
have had some different emotions. 

Nearly a week had passed since he came to 
Detroit. He sat by his window in the after- 
noon and looked out upon the beautiful Campus 
with its wealth of foliage, and felt an indefin- 
able gladness of heart at the sight of the ver- 
dure. For life, even in its lowest animal, or 
even vegetable forms, always seemed to him to 
have a kinship with himself. His hold upon 
existence, like that of every other thoroughly 
vigorous nature, was so powerful and sympa- 
thetic that he felt a kind of affection for the 
very grass and the leaves on the trees, because 
they had one thing in common with himself — • 
life. 

Things in general looked very harmonious 
and beautiful to him now. Thus do sorrows 
fade as they recede into the past, and anticipat- 
ed joys brighten as they approach, even be- 
fore they come in sight. 

The afternoon shaded into evening, and still 
he sat and dreamed of the delicious little sur- 
prise he was to occasion when he should come 
unexpectedly into his home, two days hence. 


ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 


151 


He had left his door unlocked, and was so 
absorbed in thought that he heard neither the 
knock at the door nor the opening and shutting 
of the door after the knock. 

It was a woman. She came stealthily for- 
ward. The gas was not lighted, and if any one 
passing before the window had looked up she 
could scarcely have been seen standing behind 
his chair. She stood there only a moment, and 
then came forward another step and sank on 
her knees beside him. Even then he did not 
see her until she touched his arm. 

“ Annette ! Again ? ” 

“ Again. Forgive me. I must come. 
Despair took hold of him. The transition 
was too sudden. He shook her off, and started 
to ring for lights. On second thought he con- 
cluded it might be embarrassing to ring. He 
lit the gas himself and pulled down the shades. 

“ Now, Annette — Mrs. Lebeau,” said he, 
planting himself upright befoi'e her, “what in 
the name of all reason does this mean ? ” 

She had risen from the position in which 
she first announced herself, and was sitting in 
an easy-chair under the chandelier. She looked 
at him reproachfully and made no reply. 

A sudden thought came to him. This pur- 
suit of him wherever he went — suppose it 


152 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

should have been observed by some enemy of 
his. How could he ever explain the society of 
this woman ? The very walls, have ears and 
eyes. There was only one door into the room 
besides the one from the hall. 

He stepped over to this door that led into an 
adjoining room and tried to see if it was locked. 

“ Well ? ” said Madame Lebeau, in a satirical 
tone, “ are you going to kill me ? ” 

He looked at her in surprise at the sudden 
change in her manner. 

“ I only thought,” said she, “ that if you were 
to murder an obnoxious person, you would 
probably pull down the shades and try all the 
doors, that no one might see or come in un- 
aware.” 

“ Joking aside, Madame Lebeau, to what am 
I indebted for the honor of this visit ? ” 

“ Harry! ” 

Her tone, her whole attitude had changed 
again. She was once more suppliant and ap- 
parently ready to fall at his feet. He waited 
for her to say more. 

“ Harry,” she said, “ I could not let you go 
away from me, forever, in the way you left me at 
Omaha. You kissed me, it is true, but when 
you had kissed me you flung me aside with 
such violence that I fell to the floor. I lost 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


153 • 


consciousness, Harry. And when I awoke to 
realities around me, you were gone. Gone, I 
knew not were. Gone, never to come back to 
me. And O, Harry, I could not, could not 
bear it.” 

“ There now, Madame 11 — Annette, no crying 
now. That won’t help matters a bit.” 

“ I won’t cry, Harry. I will not. Only for- 
give me for crying.” 

“ Certainly. But now don’t you think you 
had better go ? It might be embarrassing for 
you to be found here.” 

“ Harry, do you believe you ever loved me ? ” 

“ If you came here to discuss that, I’m afraid 
I shan’t have time to talk with you about it.” 

“ O, Harry, don’t answer me in that cruel, 
cold way. Be good to me, just for a few min- 
utes. If I had been a cold-hearted, merciless 
man instead of an unfortunate woman I should 
never have pursued you to this place. But I 
should have died if I had not come and begged 
of you to give me the one little satisfaction of 
parting from me in a different spirit.” 

“Well, Annette, I will say this to you, I do 
feel kindly toward you and w r ould never will- 
ingly do you any harm or suffer any one else 
to harm you if I could help it. Can we not 
part with kind feelings toward each other ? ” 


154 ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 

She listened to him with her hands clasped 
and uplifted as though in the act of worship. 

“ Thank you, Harry, from my soul for speak- 
ing so kindly. May I not stay with you a few 
minutes and talk kindly ? I have come so far, 
Harry, I wanted to see you so much, and I 
will go away soon, never to come back again — 
if you say I must never come back.” 

Her voice was so gentle and pleading, and 
she threw so much of her passionate soul into 
the tones of it, that he could not speak harshly 
in reply. All he could do was to bow his head 
slightly. She knew it meant she need not go 
at once. 

“ I will be very good, Harry.” 

Her voice could not have been heard half the 
length of the room. She scarcely more than 
whispered. He involuntarily bent lower to 
catch the words. What she said, and the tones 
in which she said it, were an echo of long ago. 
Was the woman a sorceress, that she could 
sway him against all his reason and volition? 

“ Very, very good will I be, Harry. Only 
let me stay a little while and talk — talk about 
anything and everything you like. And when 
I go this time, I will go for always, if you say 
so.” 

“ Annette, you must be in league with the 
powers of the other world ! ” 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


155 


“ Why so?” 

“ Because you always bewitch me into what 
I am fully resolved not to do.” 

“ I shall not try to make you do anything you 
don’t want to do, Harry. But there is one 
thing I should very much like you to do if you 
would.” 

“ Well ? ” 

“ Sit down here near me and let me see you 
and touch you gently while we chat awhile.” 

He drew a chair beside her and sat down in 
it. She reached out her hand timidly. He 
took the hand in his, and a look of intense sat- 
isfaction passed over her face. If the door into 
the next room could have been opened by some 
one, that some one would have said these were 
a pair of lovers. 

“ Annette, it has sometimes seemed to me 
that you are not responsible for the things you 
do. In other words, that you are crazy.” 

A strange light gleamed in her eyes. 

“ If you had been through all I have for the 
last few years, Harry, you would think me a 
very strong-minded woman to have kept myself 
out of an asylum.” 

“ I suppose you have led a strange life.” 

“Strange? You know something of my 
secret, and so I can speak freely with you. 


156 


ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 


Harry,” (here she grasped his hand in both of 
hers), “ how do you suppose you could carry 
the secret of a murder? ” 

Her excitement was such that her teeth 
chattered as she paused. 

“ A murder ! And knew that only one other 
person knew the secret. You two persons in 
all the universe knew that one horrible secret. 
Why, Harry, sometimes I have not dared go to 
sleep the whole night long, for fear I should 
dream of it and call out some name in my sleep 
so loud that some one should hear it. And 
then — then — the murderer would be murdered 
in turn, on the gallows. Oh-h-h ! ” 

She shuddered so, as she groaned out this 
exclamation of terror, that he feared she was 
going into convulsions. He put his arm around 
her shoulders, and she nestled shivering, closer 
to him. 

“ Oh, it is horrible, horrible ! And the only 
being in the world that comforts me, that by 
his mere presence gives me strength — he drives 
me away from him. But it’s all right. I don’t 
deserve anything better.” 

“ What would you have anyhow, Annette, if 
you could have what you want ? ” 

She drew back from him so suddenly that 
she seemed to thrust him from her. With both 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


157 


hands clinging to his shoulders, she looked with 
one devouring gaze into his face, while every 
feature trembled and was convulsed with emo- 
tion. 

Then she sank back as suddenly, with his arm 
around her. 

“ You did not need to ask that question, 
Harry,” she said, in almost a whisper. “ But I 
can never have it.” 

They sat, after this, in a silence which neither 
seemed inclined to break. They did not need 
to talk, for each felt all the other would say. 
A pair of lovers, indeed. Perhaps many that 
pass for lovers care no more for each other than 
these two. 

At last she spoke again, in low tones as 
before. 

“ Harry, I could do anything for you. Yes,” 
(she looked at him again with that same wild 
look that had made him think her insane), 
“ yes, Harry, for you I could do — murder ! If 
any human life or human happiness stood be- 
tween me and you, and I believed you would 
love me with it gone, I could crush it into ob- 
livion, and shout for joy and triumph.” 

“ Annette, you are crazy ! ” 

“ But, Harry ” — her voice was pleading again 
— “ don’t pursue Mons. Lebeau. Promise me 


158 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


you will not let them hunt him down. They 
could never prove anything. And it would 
only bring disgrace on me — me, Harry ! ” 

“ What others may do, Annette, I cannot 
control or know. But I promise you this, that 
if any harm ever comes to Mons. Lebeau, it 
shall be not through me, but in spite of all I 
can do to prevent it.” 

“ Oh, thank you. I believe you say this out 
of your heart, and I know you never deceive. 
I shall go away more easily, now. I shall never 
see that man again if I can avoid him, but it 
will be a comfort to me to know that I have 
not harmed him. But, Harry, tell me this. For- 
give me that I ask it, but I am going away so 
soon, forever, that I may be excused for asking 
strange things. So you will not be angry with 
me?” 

“ What is it ? ” 

“ If Mrs. Stuart were not in existence, or if 
she had ceased to love you or had for any cause 
forsaken you, would you — could you, under those 
circumstances have felt any differently toward 
me ? ” 

He drew her closer to him and murmured : 

“ Don’t ask me such questions, Annette.” 

And there was a horror in his voice as he 
said it. 


ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 


159 


“ No, Harry,” she resumed, after a pause. 
“ I will not ask any more naughty questions. 
You are very good to let me come here at all 
— to let me stay and talk to you a little while. 
But I am going away in a few moments, Harry, 
and I shall not trouble you any more.” 

She said it with a bitter smile. She seemed 
striving to repress some bitter feeling ; for she 
smiled with her lips, while she looked death in 
her eyes ; and after a little she burst into a 
voiceless sobbing and sank back into his arms. 
As soon as she could control herself, she 
straightened up and said : 

“ It is all for the best, Harry. It is all right. 
I loved you sincerely, but there were too many 
obstacles. Perhaps you will find sometime 
that you loved me, too, better than you knew. 
And if you do — but no matter. 1 will go now, 
Harry. You shall not have to send me away.” 

He bowed his head. He dared not look her 
in the face, for fear of saying something that he 
might regret. Then he said : 

“ Did you come far since I saw you last ? ” 

“ All the way from Omaha.” 

“ I hope you brought enough with you to get 
safely back — or wherever you are going ? ” 

She dropped her head and said nothing. 

“ Tell me this, Annette, where are you going 
from here ? ” 


160 


ONLY A FARMER'S DA UOttTEF. 


It doesn’t matter to me.” 

“ But you must not speak in that desperate 
way. Annette, you have enough to reach some 
place of safety ?” 

She lifted her shoulders. 

“ Annette, do me this one kindness : take 
enough to carry you safely — wherever you want 
to go.” 

He handed her a roll of bills. 

At the same instant he pressed his hand to 
his forehead and wondered if he were dizzy. 
For the wall opposite seemed to move. The 
door that he had tried turned on its hinges. 

And in the doorway stood a woman — 
Emily ! 

Her hands were lifted, with the palms for- 
biddingly toward him, as he started in her di- 
rection. Then she clasped her hands over her 
eyes and sobbed before she spoke. 

Behind her stood an awkward countryman in 
a yellow kerchief, and with an antiquated tile in 
his hand — Joe ! 

Harry Stuart did not look around at Annette 
who was standing close to him, her fingers 
clenched around the bank-bills, her cheeks 
flushed, her mouth open and panting, her dark 
eyes flashing like two fires in the night-time. 

“ Go back,” said Emily. “ Don’t touch me. 


OXLV A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


161 


I have seen all : Heard nothing. Thank God 
that I heard nothing; for you spoke too 
low, and I shall not carry that sorrow with me 
— the sorrow of having heard you tell yourlove 
to another woman/' 

“ There now, Miss Emily, cheer up, and don't 
deel too awful bad," said Joe. 

Joe thought she was going to faint, and he 
came clumsily nearer, and stood ready to catch 
her, or at least to pick her up, in case she should 
fall. 

Annette breathed so hard through her half- 
open lips that the sound was like the hissing of 
a serpent. 

“ I could not believe what they said," con- 
tinued Emily. “ I came to see and to show 
them it was all a mistake. They put me here 
in the next room. And I saw it all. Oh-h-h ! 
I saw it all, all ! " 

“ Thar, thar now, Miss Emily, brace up, 
won’t ye ? " 

“ But the horrid dream was true. I saw you 
caress her. I saw you kiss her. I saw you 
look at her as— O my God — as I believed you 
had never looked at any woman but me. And 
then — then you gave her money. O Harry, 
Harry, I loved you more than my life." 

“ By gosh, if she ain’t clean gone this time, I’m 


162 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


a sinner ! ” said Joe, who ventured nearer and 
held his long arms around her, but reverently 
refrained - from touching her until such time as 
she should actually fall. 

“ Don’t be frightened, Joe ; I shall not faint. 
The suspense — it was the suspense. Now that 
I know — now that the uncertainty is all gone, 
I shall be strong. And yet, Harry, I loved you 
and could love you yet, if it were only possible 
to explain. But you could never explain all 
this.” 

“ No, siree, you can’t never explain huggin’ 
that ’ere woman, Mr. Stuart, an’ if I had you 
outen the woods whar I could git good ’n’ square 
at ye, I’d horsewhip ye till ye couldn’t stan’ — 
that I would ! ” 

“ Don’t say that ; he’s my husband still, and 
I wouldn’t have harm come to him. Though 
I pray God I may never see him again. - ’ 

Annette breathed harder and seemed to hiss 
louder. She looked steadily at Emily, who 
presently returned her gaze. Then there was a 
silent tableau, as all the pity mingled with scorn 
from Emily’s eye met the fierce passion and 
murderous hate from the other. 

But at last Annette’s eye fell, and at the 
same time the bills fell from her grasp, and a 
gold coin jangled along the door and stopped 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 163 

at Emily’s feet. She cast it aside with a turn of 
her foot, and said, — 

“ Love that money will buy is not for me.” 

Then she turned wearily back and said, — 

“ Take me away, Joe.” 

Not until then did Harry feel sure his throat 
was not paralyzed. She was going from him, 
and he felt it was forever. He reached out his 
arms to her and said, — 

“ Emily ! ” 

But she only looked back over her shoulder 
a moment, with that lofty scorn which an angel 
might be supposed to entertain toward a mortal 
who had committed a sin that to the angelic 
mind was incomprehensible and beyond repara- 
tion. 

Then she was gone, and Joe with her. 

Harry Stuart stood motionless, stunned at 
the rapidity and awfulness of what had befallen 
him. As soon as he could recover himself, he 
turned back to Annette. 

She was on her knees at his side. He would 
have pushed her away with his foot, only that 
he remembered she was a woman. 

“ This is your doing,” he muttered. 

“ What ? ” She looked up, frightened. 

“ If you had not come at this unfortunate 
hour there would have been no horrible mistake 


164 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


of the kind. She will never believe me now. 
I know her nature. She will never let me ex- 
plain. O, Emily ! ” 

“ Do you love that woman ? ” 

“ Annette ! ” 

“ If she never comes back will you love me ? ” 

He looked at her with a loathing that was 
more effective than any answer he could have 
made. 

Her eyes glistened as she looked up at him. 
Foam came out of her mouth as her lips 
parted and the two rows of white teeth were 
revealed, set firm the one against the other. 

A gurgling noise muttered through her throat 
— half like the gasp of a drowning man, half 
like the suppressed growl of a wild beast. Her 
fingers clawed the air, convulsively, as though 
they were the talons of a tiger starting after its 
prey. Then, with dilated nostrils and thick- 
coming breath she sprang at his throat. 

With the strength of three men she hugged 
and shook him, while she bit her long white 
teeth into his throat until the blood came. 
Like a vampire she fastened on his throat and 
drank his blood. 

He shouted as well as he could for help, all 
the time that she was smothering his voice and 
striving to throw him to the floor. Chairs and 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 165 

tables were overturned. Vases fell to the floor 
and were dashed in a thousand pieces. 

At last the noise was so great as to excite 
attention in the hotel. She had locked the 
door on entering, but it was broken down at 
the same instant that another party came 
through the other door where Emily had dis- 
appeared. Together they fell upon the mad 
woman and tore her loose from her intended 
victim. 

Her strength soon gave way, and she sat 
quite helpless on the floor as they bound her 
arms. She watched them without a show of 
resistance. When it was all done, she looked 
once more toward Harry, who was lying on 
a lounge nearly faint from shock and loss of 
blood. 

. There was no hate in her eye now, only a 
tenderness and a surprise as she saw the crimson 
stains, and when she saw the same stains on 
her own clothing, she examined them in wonder. 
Then with unutterable tenderness she watched 
them tending Harry, bathing his white face 
and smoothing back the hair from his clammy 
forehead. 

They left her there, curious to see what she 
would do. She seemed so gentle that there 
appeared to be scarcely any need of tying her 


lG6 ONLY A FAllMEll’S DA U GUT Eli. 

hands. But they left her tied. The transition 
was too sudden. 

She would not be moved, but sat quietly on 
the floor near him. She lifted her two hands 
tied together as they were, and touched his 
hand. She started back in horror, and whis- 
pered : 

“ It is cold ! ” 

Then her eye wandered up again, to his face 
and down to the blood stains on his collar. 

“ Poor boy ! ” she said, in a caressing way. 
“ They have hurt him ! ” 

He opened his eyes. 

“ Who is she ? ” they asked. ‘ Where does 
she come from ? ” 

He answered : 

“ I don’t know.” 

And they carried her away to a mad-house. 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


167 


CHAPTER XIII. 

As the carriage containing Annette Lebeau 
was driven past the railway station, she might 
have seen again the woman whose entry into 
Stuart’s room had been the occasion of such 
commotion. That other was helped out of her 
carriage by Joe, and leaning on his arm tottered 
across the way and disappeared in the station. 

All the way home to New York, Joe washer 
constant attendant. He anticipated her every 
want. She did not need to ask him for any- 
thing, and as any conversation not forced upon 
her was a great effort, but few words passed 
between them in all the journey. 

Joe dared not ask her what she would do. 
All he knew was that she said, get two tickets 
for New York. He would not ask her questions 
about the future ; for his sensibilities were deli- 
cate enough to tell him that she was not in a 
frame of mind for plans. So he sat near her, 
and when she looked especially uneasy, he 
pretty generally understood what service he 


168 


ONLY A FARMER'S V A UGH TER. 


could perform most acceptably, without need- 
ing to ask her. 

They went straight to the home in New York, 
and there Joe saw nothing of her for hours. 
Then he found her going about the house, 
picking up little things here and there and 
bringing them together. It seemed to Joe that 
the preparations were for some funeral, where 
relics of the departed were gathered and stowed 
away out of sight, and there was to be a general 
farewell to everything. 

Then came men who packed various things 
and covered others with cloths, as though for a 
long absence. Joe looked on at it all, and asked 
no questions. He would have gone away if he 
had dared ; for it seemed to him he was out of 
place here. But Emily appeared to take his 
presence as a matter of course, and he felt it 
might not be quite pleasant to her if he should 
go away at once. 

But when the men had gone through all the 
house and had completed their work, what- 
ever it might be, Emily said to him : 

“ To-morrow, Joe, we will go away.” 

“ Where now? ” said Joe. 

She looked very solemn and quiet for a mo- 
ment before she answered, and then she said, 

“ Home.” 


ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 


169 


So they went away from the beautiful rooms 
in New York, which were the center of all she 
had ever known of the great world, and together 
they came again to the old home among the 
Massachusetts hills. 

“Joe,” she said timidly, as they were nearing 
the end of their journey, “ I don’t need ask 
you to say nothing of all we have seen.” 

“ No word shall ever be said about it* Miss 
Em’ly, unless it be what you say your own 
self.” 

So they came to the home that she had left 
for so much possible happiness. And if she 
had been a widow, the old folks could not have 
welcomed her more tenderly, or refrained more 
delicately from mentioning the name of the one 
whose memory might call up a flood of painful 
recollections. 

Meantime what has befallen the enthusiastic 
Inspector who had improvised a detective and 
sent him to Denver ? 

Inspector watched nervously for news 

of the great case that was to add fame to his 
name and that of his friend Henry. When 
forty-eight hours had passed since he knew 
that Stuart must have reached Denver, and not 
a syllable came over the lines to him, he began 
to become very much excited, and was on the 


170 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER, 

point of telegraphing to find out what had mis- 
carried. 

But at the highest pitch of anxiety came a 
message that set him dancing for joy, and made 
him forget all about Stuart. The message was 
unsigned. It said : 

“ Woman left for Omaha this morning. Hus- 
band left alone for New York this evening. 
Catch him Pennsylvania Ferry.” 

The Inspector was sure this could mean 
nothing else than that Lebeau or whatever his 
name was, was coming back to New York. 
He must have been frightened away at the 
sight of Stuart and sent his wife on another 
train as a blind. 

He dared not let the man slip away from 
him again. He must arrest him now on sus- 
picion, and trust to good fortune to get evidence 
enough to hang the fellow afterwards. 

Thus it happened that when four or five 
days later Monsieur Lebeau stepped off the 
Desbrosses Street Ferry boat, he was politely 
invited into a carriage which took him down- 
town instead of, as he had intended, uptown. 

And thus it happened that Mons. Lebeau 
became an inmate of the Tombs, Madame Le- 
beau of an asylum, and Harry Stuart of a 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


171 


hospital — and the unfortunate Inspector was at 
his wit’s end what to do with Mons. Lebeau, 
now that he had got him. He was ready to 
devour Stuart alive when he saw him, without 
a note of warning, walk into the headquarters of 
police. 

“ God bless you, my dear boy, why didn’t 
you send word you were coming ? Let me 
congratulate you on hunting the fellow down 
so soon and driving him home. But how pale 
you are ! ” 

Stuart sat down in the window, fully as much 
bewildered by his reception as the Inspector 
was by the sight of him. 

“God bless me, did you say? Well, God 
forgive you for sending me on such an errand ! ” 

“ Have you been sick, Henry ? What is your 
throat done up for ? ” 

Stuart loosened the handkerchief and dis- 
played his neck. 

“ Teeth ! ” said the Inspector. At which he 
paused, and stood with an air of anticipation. 

“ I’ve made up my mind,” said Harry, “ to 
make a clean breast of it to you, as an old friend. 
Besides being such a friend that I am sure, 
you would never betray me, I know' you to have 
a wonderful knowledge of human nature and 
of crime. I’m going to give the whole story 


172 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


to you from the beginning, and if you can solve 
a question or two for me, you will do more for 
me than if you made me a present of a hand- 
some fortune.” 

Then he told the Inspector of his first meet- 
ing with Annette and all about their warm re- 
lations with each other, their meeting in New 
York, his experience with her in Denver, all 
that occurred in Omaha and at Detroit. 

“ Now, my dear old friend, what do you think 
of it all, and what shall I do ? 

The Inspector said nothing for a few mo- 
ments. He had listened with the greatest at- 
tention, and seemed in some difficulty to explain 
satisfactorily to himself all he had heard. Then 
he questioned Stuart particularly as to some 
parts of his story. He was especially minute in 
regard to every reference Madame Lebeau had 
made to the murder. 

“ Friend Henry, I see further into a mill- 
stone than I did. You have put some ideas 
into my head that alter my theories very mater- 
ially. You know what asylum Madame Lebeau 
is confined in ? ” 

“Yes. That is to say, I don’t know the 
name of it, but I could easily find it by com- 
munication with the proprietor of the Kirkwood 
House. He knows where Madame was taken.” 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


173 


“ Harry, my boy,” said the Inspector, slapping 
him between the shoulders, “you and I will 
leave for Detroit to-night.” 

“ Oh, I beg of you, leave me free from all this 
horrible business. I have had eno'ugh of it, 
and too much of it. Go your way. Find out 
anything and everything of this abomination, 
but tell me how my ruined home can be restored 
to me, and how I shall ever — how I can ever 
explain, so that my wife will be reconciled to 
me.” 

“ Don’t you worry your head about that. 
You’ll be all right.” 

“ Yes, yes: my troubles don’t trouble you at 
all ; for all you have in mind is to work out 
your theories. But look at this letter. I found 
my home deserted, the pictures covered on the 
wall, everything packed away in huge trunks, 
and in my own — our own sleeping-room was 
this letter from Emily, bidding me farewell for- 
ever.” 

“ Now, Harry, don’t be an old woman. You 
follow my advice. You stick to me, and do just 
exactly what I tell you and when I tell yoi^ 
and in good time you’ll come out with flying 
colors. But if you want to have your own way 
about it — why, just go right along to the devil. 
You’ll get there fast enough.” 


174 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 


“ What have you in mind now ? ” 

“ It don’t make one bit of difference. You 
just do what I tell you, and meet me at the 
Grand Central Depot, Hudson River side, at a 
quarter before six this evening.” 

“ Well.” 

“ Be there, sure ? ” 

“ Yes, I'll come. I put myself in your hands> 
and will do anything you ask of me.” 

“ That’s a good boy. Now, get right away, 
leave me to settle up some business, and let me 
make all my own arrangements. Ah, Harry, 
we’ll be famous, you ’n’ I, before another six 
months.” 

“ But Emily — ” 

“ Yes, and Emily. She’ll think you’re the 
king-pin of the universe. So-long ! ” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER . 


175 


CHAPTER XIV. 

There are few words in the language more 
horrible than “ mad-house.” A coffin is less 
terrible. 

Mad-houses are, nevertheless, often very 
agreeable places to look at. Some of them 
bear no suggestion in their appearance of what 
they are. And some of them are not essen- 
tially homes for the insane ; but people more or 
less out of their minds are there cared for, un- 
der the same roof with other kinds of patients. 

These latter are rather hospitals, or, to use 
a word of more pretentious magnitude, “ sani- 
tariums.” - People that are not known to be 
confirmed mad people are sometimes cared for 
at these places ; and very judicious is that kind 
of treatment, too. For, to whom is it not a 
suggestion of unspeakable terror to be told that 
if he should some day act a little queerly, he 
might straightway be hustled off and incarcer- 
ated for life in a genuine mad-house, without 


176 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


an opportunity to recover and show that he is 
not mad ? 

One afternoon, in the summer of 18 — , Harry 
Stuart and his friend the Inspector, were ush- 
ered with many polite bows into one of these 
private homes for invalids in a Western city. 
The condescending and at the same time watch- 
ful manner in which the Inspector was received' 
suggested a suspicion as to whether the Inspec- 
tor might not himself be one of those erratic 
individuals who are sometimes kept in confine- 
ment for the good of their health and the safety 
of their more rational fellow-beings. Which 
was not to be wondered at ; for the Inspector 
was evidently in some perturbation of mind - 
which, however, he attributed to the warmth of 
the weather, and the rapidity with which he had 
been walking. 

However, these two gentlemen had been fur- 
nished with a very pressing letter in which the 
officer in charge of the Sanitarium was urged 
to show them every attention in his power ; to 
conduct the strangers through the entire es- 
tablishment, and explain the workings thereof. 

Thus it happened that the two strangers 
were cordially received by a very prim, middle- 
aged man, in a collar ; likewise middle-aged, and 
very high under the ears. By him they were 


ONLY A FARMER* S DAUGHTER. 177 

escorted from cellar to roof, and stuck all full 
of bits of information that prickled like so many 
icicles. 

“ This, gentlemen, is an old and very respect- 
able institution. It has for its object the care, 
protection and resuscitation of the sick in body 
and in mind. Many most respectable ” (here 
his collar caught him under the right ear and 
caused him to elongate his neck,) “ ladies and 
gentlemen of all ages and both sexes, afflicted 
with all the ills to which flesh is heir, have 
sought repose and recuperation within these 
hospitable walls.” 

“ If that’s so, friend, suppose you take us 
round a bit and show off some of the people,” 
said the Inspector. 

“ Sir ! ” ejaculated the officer in charge, too 
much astonished to reply. 

“ Show ’em up, — these invalid patients of 
yours.” 

“ My dear sir, it is the pride of the Sanitarium, 
that our clientele can find retirement as well as 
recuperation, sir. We never ‘ show ’em up,’ 
sir.” 

“ You will excuse my friend’s seemingly 
abrupt manner,” interjected Stuart, quietly, with 
the apparent intention of saying something to 

the bumptious person in charge, not intended 
12 


178 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


for the Inspector’s ear. “The truth is, my 
friend is a very eminent physician from the 
East, whose only fault is a somewhat eccentric 
abruptness. Our purpose in coming here, is 
to study and profit by the theories on which 
your admirable institution is conducted.” 

“ Oh, I see, sir ! ” 

Whereat the man in the high collar cast a 
sidelong glance of loftly reverence at the In- 
spector.” 

“ Well, friend,” said the Inspector, “ time’s 
pressing. Going to show us ’round ? ” 

“ Certainly sir ; without any delay, sir. I 
feel — we feel most highly honored, sir, to have 
a man of your distinction come from so long a 
distance to study our institution, sir. ' And we 
feel proud to exhibit to gentlemen of distinction 
and eminence from other — and it may be greater 
and older — cities, a scheme of sanitary and medi- 
cal ” (here his collar caught him under the left 
ear, with a result as before) “ jurisprudence, so 
to speak, as it were, which would be the pride 
of any city and any age.” 

The old fellow was evidently overpowered 
with the eminence of his visitor ; for he grew 
more windily rhetorical, and his words tumbled 
over each other as unceremoniously as if they 
had been trying to walk over a rope in the 
dark. 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


179 


The Inspector cut him short by taking the 
handle of a door and attempting to explore 
things for himself. 

“ Not in there, sir, I beg of you,” (arresting 
his hand) “ that is a private room belonging 
exclusively to the nurses. I would not venture 
going in there myself, sir.” 

“ Go ahead, then, and tell us about it all 
afterwards. 

“ This way, sir.” 

The official then led the way through the 
different wards, occasionally closing doors that 
led into private rooms, and explaining all the 
time, volubly and in the sing-song monotony of 
one who has learned a lesson without knowing 
what it means, and fears interruption, lest he 
may lose the thread of it and be broken up. 

At last they were through the main build- 
ing, and the Inspector had become so impatient 
that he could scarcely treat his guide with 
politeness. 

“ Is this all ? ” he inquired. 

“ This is all the main building, sir ; but we 
have one or two other very interesting depart- 
ments.” 

“ The devil you have ! Ah, well ? ” 

“ You would be pleased to visit the entire 
establishment, sir ? ” 


130 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

“ That’s what we came for.” 

“ Then, sir, if you will descend this back 
staircase, you will go by the nearest way into 
what is thought by some to be the most inter- 
esting and beneficent branch of our institution. 
This way, sir.” 

They descended, and came out upon a lawn 
— a sort of private square, surrounded by 
buildings, dotted with trees and shrubbery, and 
perfumed with beds of flowers. Stuart paused 
and sniffed the air, and took in all the exquisite 
beauty of the surroundings. 

“ I could almost consent to be an invalid,” 
said he, “ if they would let me come here and 
stay.” 

“ Humph ! ” said the Inspector, “ get tired 
of it soon enough, I reckon, if you were sick all 
the while.” 

“It is, indeed, a beautiful and salubrious con- 
comitant of surroundings, gentlemen, and one 
of which our institution is justly and deserved- 
ly proud.” 

“ Humph ! ” Well, what more have you got 
to show us ? ” 

“We have still, sir, to visit one part of our 
institution that is, as I had the honor to re- 
mark, peculiarly beneficent. It may not be 
unknown to you, sir, that there are people who 


ONLY A FARMER’S LAUGHTER. 


181 


are taken with maladies of the mind in mild 
forms.” 

“ Crazy, that is.” 

“ They might, sir, be said to be persons who 
have suffered an interruption in the capacity 
to control with equilibrium their mental fac- 
ulties. They cannot with justice be stigmatized 
as insane people. Their malady of the mind 
may become of so inconsequential a nature as 
that they may totally recover. And the shock 
of recovering and discovering one’s self in — as 
we might say — an insane asylum, would some- 
times be so severe as to unbalance completely 
the frail faculties and eventuate in irremediable 
insanity.” 

“ By which I suppose you mean you’ve got a 
sort of private mad-house, here ? ” 

“ Sir!” 

“ Only my friend’s bluntness,” said Stuart, 
in another aside. “ Show him these new quar- 
ters. Insanity is his specialty.” 

“ Ah ! ” 

Then turning to the Inspector, the official 
remarked : 

“ Your friend tells me insanity is your spe- 
cialty, sir. In that case you appreciate well what 
I have striven in my feeble way to describe.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said the Inspector. “ I appreciate 


182 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


it all well enough. Take us into these crazy 
rooms and let me see what I think of the 
people and your way. of treating them.” 

The little party then made their way across 
the lawn to a beautiful little cottage in the 
further corner. 

“ You must understand, now,” said the guide, 
stopping on the threshold and turning back, 
while his voice dropped into a mysterious whis- 
per and his mouth puckered ominously, “ these 
people are perhaps no more insane than you or 
I. Their minds are only weakened or distorted 
by some influence that may be but transient. 
Don’t appear to notice that they are in any way 
peculiar.” 

“No, no,” said the Inspector. “You just 
lead right on. We’ll take care of the rest.” 

The party were then ushered into a sort of 
parlor in which a half-dozen people were sitting 
in various attitudes, reading or doing some kind 
of embroidery. They were all women — most 
of them rather young. 

“ There,” said he of the high collar, “ are 
some of the more hopeless of the patients. 
Small hopes are entertained of their complete 
recovery, and they are therefore allowed to 
mingle in each other’s society. As no one of 
them is in possession of her senses, no one of 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


183 


them will realize she is among people who are 
out of their heads.” 

“ Ah ! ” said the Inspector, meditatively, 
“quite curious, quite curious ! ” 

“You don’t consider them dangerous?” in- 
quired Stuart. 

“ Not in the least, sir. You need have not 
the slightest hesitation in addressing them, if 
you think best. You would find them quite ra- 
tional on most subjects.” 

“ Poor things! ” said the Inspector. 

They had not been noticed by any of the 
inmates of the room. One or two of them 
glanced around with indifference, as the door 
opened to admit them. Just as one would 
glance towards a draught of wind and wonder 
simply where it came from. 

“ Friend Harry, I’ve a good mind to adopt 
this gentleman’s suggestion and enter into con- 
versation with some of these creatures.” 

“ No doubt,” responded Harry, “ you would 
learn something. Most people of original ideas 
are somewhat insane.” 

“ Which is another way of saying insane 
people know everything that is worth know- 

ing” 

“ Let me introduce you,” said the guide. 
“ Madame Recamier, allow me to introduce 


184 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


two gentlemen of fortune now traveling on 
the continent. 

[Aside]. “ She imagines she is the celebrated 
Madame Recamier, only she confuses dates a 
little. You are from England?” 

The Madame made a gracious courtesy. 
She appeared more attracted by Stuart than by 
his older companion, and gently indicated that 
a seat by her side was vacant. Stuart took 
the hint and settled himself down beside her 
with the air of one accustomed to the atmos- 
phere of courts. 

“ You are traveling, gentlemen ? ” said Ma- 
dame, with a rising intonation. 

“ From England,” said Stuart, respectfully. 

“ Ah ! ” said Madame, bridling up with sud- 
den interest, and poising her head with a 
coquettish turn, “ I suspected as much.” 

“ You can always tell an Englishman, then ? ” 

“ Yes. There is always, even among the 
most cultivated, a slight peculiarity of accent 
when conversing in our language.” 

[“Wonder if she thinks we are are talking 
French,” queried Stuart to himself ]. 

“ We cannot hope even to speak it with the 
same purity as yourself,” said he. 

“ Ah, thank you,” she rejoined. “ But tell me 
how is our dear old sovereign, George the 
Third.” 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER, 


185 


“ Dead, I hope,” Stuart was about to remark, 
but checked himself in time to say : “ I don’t 
think he lias been in better health at any time 
during the last ten years.” 

“ It rejoices me greatly to hear that. Our 
own sovereign has not been very well since the 
Revolution. That little upstart of a Napoleon 
caused a great deal of disturbance. Indeed, I 
believe he at one time killed the dear old 
Louis XVI., but the old man soon came to life 
again and we are now having a very prosperous 
reign.” 

“ He could not fail to have a prosperous 
reign when so illustrious and beautiful a woman 
as Madame Recamier condescends to grace 
his court.” 

“You do me honor,” she replied, bowing 
sweetly over her fan. “ But is it not a great 
pity that Frederick the Great should not give 
up dictating to his paltry little kingdom, and 
come and add a little to the majesty of our 
court ? ” 

“ Perhaps it may be on account of his size,” 
suggested Stuart. 

“Yes, that may be,” she replied, “ Mons- 
Voltaire was telling me only the other day, 
that it is positively ridiculous how small he is. 
Why they do say ” (here she lowered her voice 


186 


ONLY A FARM Eli'S DAUGHTER. 


into a whisper and bent toward Stuart so sud- 
denly that he half started to place himself at 
safer distance) “ that he is so little he cannot 
eat from ordinary dinner-plates, but has a spe- 
cial set of toy-dishes lifted up through the floor 
with his dinner on them, and he sits in a little 
chair made on purpose for him, so that his legs 
can reach the floor. 

“ Not,” she continued, suddenly drawing back 
to correct herself, “ that I would mean to assert 
on my own responsibility that his majesty is 
possessed of anything so unregal and demo- 
cratic as legs.” 

During this conversation the Inspector was 
walking about the room looking at the pictures 
on the walls, and everything else that was visi- 
ble. He was very uneasy to feel the time 
slipping away and be to all appearances no 
nearer attaining the object of his visit than 
when he started. The face he wanted to see he 
did not think was there. 

“ Hang that crazy woman,” he muttered to 
himself, “ will Harry never be done talking to 
her ? I don’t know this face for sure that we’re 
after, and he might as well be decent enough 
to look ’round and help me.” 

The high-collared guide discreetly withdrew 
to a position near the doorway, and allowed his 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER . 


187 


visitors to take whatever measures they chose 
for studying the patients, without interruption. 

Suddenly the Inspector stopped short and 
found himself so excited that he actually trem- 
bled. 

A young woman of surpassing beauty came 
slowly through an open door at the end of the 
room. Her hands were folded in the attitude 
of prayer. She moved along with the absorbed 
air of a Sister of Mercy in the worldly streets 
of a city. Yet a half-satirical smile played 
about the corners of her mouth, and she now 
and then cast sidelong glances in either direc- 
tion, as though she thought herself observed 
and was amused at the effect of her hypocrisy. 

“ Strange case, sir,” said the guide, attracted 
toward the Inspector by his sudden show of in- 
terest. “ Hopeless case, too, we fear. . The 
young woman was found in the act of strang- 
ling a stranger, a young man, in one of our 
hotels. No one knows whence she came, and 
the young man disappeared without leaving his 
address.” 

Stuart also had been induced by the Inspec- 
tor’s exclamation to turn away his attention for 
a moment from the lovely Madame Recamier. 
He uttered but one word : 

“ Annette!” 


188 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


For it was Annette, but changed wonderfully 
in the brief time since he had escaped from her 
r.ssault. A horrible thinness, and a pallor that 
was heightened by a fever-spot in either cheek, 
told of the ravages her disordered brain had 
worked in a form that was even yet beautiful. 

She did not see either of the visitors, but 
quietly made her way over to a window-recess, 
and there sat down on a sofa. 

“ The strange lady has never entered into 
conversation with any one since she was 
brought here,” said the guide. “ She is the 
only one with whom it is not possible, among 
all the patients, to have a delightful conversa- 
tion. 

“ Is she violent ? ” inquired the Inspector. 

“ Not in the least, sir.” 

“ Any objection to my trying to talk to her ? ” 

“ Not at all, sir. But she will not respond. 
She will go on moving her lips as if she were 
praying all the time, and will not pay any at- 
tention to you.” 

“ You stand back, Harry. Let me do this.” 

Saying which, the Inspector strode over to 
the recess where Annette sat on the bench, 
moving her fingers and her lips as though she 
were telling her beads. The Inspector stood 
behind her a moment and looked down sadly 
on the young head. 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. lgQ 

For it was, indeed, a young head, from which 
the long, black hair waved luxuriantly, inter- 
spersed with little bunches of gray that must 
have come suddenly. 

He paused a moment, and then leaned over 
close to her ear and whispered one word : 

“ Kate ! ” 

She bounded from her seat, and then fell 
back trembling as though with palsy. At the 
same time she lifted both hands to her white 
ears and covered them, pressing hard against 
them while her fingers shook. 

“ What made you do it, Kate ? ” 

Her hands dropped, and she trembled more 
violently than ever as she cowered still lower, 
and strove in vain to lift her hands to her ears 
again. 

“ I couldn’t help it,” she muttered between 
her chattering teeth. “ And I’ve seen the face 
everywhere ever since. I didn’t mean to kill 
her. Oh, no, I didn’t. But ’twas so hard to 
be poor. And — and — she only choked a little, 
- just a very little. I didn’t hurt her any. 
They won’t hang me. Oh, tell me, they won’t 
hang me, will they ? ” 

She caught the Inspector by the hand and 
pulled him down toward her. 

“ There, there,” she said. “ Whisper it softly 


190 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

in my ear, so they won’t hear you. Say ‘ They 
won’t hang you.’ ” 

“ They won’t hang you,” whispered the In- 
spector. 

“ Oh, thank you. Ha-ha-ha-ha ! ” 

She laughed a little quiet laugh, looking 
stealthily around to see if any one heard her. 
Than she drew the Inspector toward her again 
and whispered : 

“ Say, tell me. What have they done with 
Harry? Oh, he was all that ever made me. 
sorry I did it. I loved him — love him now — 
love him as men say they love God. Worship 
him. — Could kill, strangle a hundred people, if 
they tried to keep Harry away from me. Say, 
tell me quick ! — They won’t let Harry know I 
strangled her, will they ? God bless him ! ” 

In her agitation she lifted her face a moment 
to catch the Inspector’s look before she should 
hear the sound of his voice. Harry stood near 
and she saw him. 

She gave one long, blood-curdling scream of 
more than earthly terror, and fell forward on 
the floor. 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


191 


CHAPTER XV. 

Harry Stuart and the Inspector had mutual 
explanation afterwards at their hotel. Much 
that had been mysterious to both of them was 
very lucid now. 

The Inspector told Harry now for the first 
time what his suspicions had been, and why he 
had come on this journey to Detroit. 

“ You see, my boy, I’ve always been more or 
less puzzled to make up my mind who in the 
world this wonderfully beautiful Madame Le- 
beau might be, anyhow. I never thought very 
much about it at first. I was pretty sure who 
Mons. Lebeau was, and my mind was quite at 
rest about Madame — taking it for granted she 
was some ordinary French adventuress. 

“ But one day I began to wonder who she 
was and where she came from. Mons. Lebeau 
was no Frenchman. Therefore she was prob- 
ably no Frenchwoman. Then I began to think 
most likely she was some member of the crimi- 
nal classes, too. But who ? ” 


192 ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

“ A question that you had some difficulty in 
answering.” 

“ Indeed, yes. And it was a good while be- 
fore I reflected very seriously on the flimsiness 
of the evidence that the young woman whose 
mother was murdered was dead herself. A 
young woman did die, to be sure, just about 
the time Kate Bush disappeared, and that young 
woman was found floating in the river, and it 
was taken for granted who she was, and she 
was buried in the Potter’s Field under the name 
of Catherine Bush. And the murder of this 
old woman, and the disappearance of the young 
woman and her Sing Sing lover occurred the 
very year when you went to Europe and made' 
the acquaintance of Madame Lebeau, and a very 
few months earlier in the year.” 

“ That is all true, my dear friend. Oh, why 
did I not understand this woman better, and 
know what she was before I ever made her un- 
fortunate acquaintance ? ” 

“ I don’t know as her acquaintance is neces- 
sarily so unfortunate a thing, Harry. If you 
hadn’t known her, one of the greatest criminal 
mysteries of the Nineteenth Century would have 
been forever undiscovered. And there was 
never anything wrong — anything more than 
a most ardent attachment between you.” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


193 


“ Yes, I believe that woman really did love 
me.” 

“ Love you ! Why, Harry, she’d have done 
anything under heaven for you. Old police 
officers are supposed to think all a criminal’s 
actions are determined by remorse or by fear 
of discovery and punishment. But I’ve learned 
that there are other motives in the heart of a 
criminal as well as in the heart of an honest 
citizen. 

“ That woman, Harry, was crazy, mad in love 
with you. So much so that her passion for you 
drowned out of her thoughts every other earthly 
consideration. If she could be where you 
were, she would not care what happened.” 

“ And when I thrust her away from me, she 
was so crazed by my apparent contempt that 
her tottering reason quite gave way. Is that 
what you think ? ” 

“ Precisely, Harry. It was for you that that 
woman lost her mind. But it wasn’t your 
fault.” 

“ But my poor Emily ! Who could ever ex- 
plain anything to her ? And what person in 
all the world is there that she would believe if 
he tried to explain to her ? ” 

The Inspector made no reply. He was not 

concerned at the present moment about any 
13 


194 


ONLY A FARMER'S LAUGHTER. 


future reconciliation between Harry Stuart and 
his wife, fond as he was of them both. Conse- 
quently, his next remark was anything but re- 
sponsive to Harry. 

“ What I’m trying to think of now, Harry, is 
what has become of Madame’s companion, and 
how did Mrs. Stuart happen to be here and 
make the discovery that you were entertaining 
Madame ? ” 

“ Two rather dissimilar subjects to think 
about,” said Stuart, “ and I don’t care a hang 
about the answer to either question.” 

“ N — no 1 Don’t suppose you do,” rejoined 
the Inspector, absent-mindedly. “ And what- 
ever has become of this fellow who calls him- 
self Mons. Lebeau, I don’t suppose matters 
much. He hasn’t been known to be connected 
with any crime since he graduated from Sing 
Sing, and he might as well be let alone until 
he compels further attention from the public. 
But, how, in the name of all wonders, did your 
wife happen to be here ? That is an unex- 
plained mystery which ought to be explained.” 

“ I think I have a notion about that.” 

“ Well?” 

“ Madwomen are often very cunning, and lay 
far-reaching plans.” 

“Yes.” " 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


195 


“ Madame Lebeau’s reason has been totter- 
ing for some little time.” 

“ Well ? ” 

“ I’ve a notion that she deliberately planned 
this meeting in Detroit. I’ve a notion that 
she thought she would have me if she could 
get me, and at no matter what cost. She 
thought she would be sure of me, if she could 
once get my wife estranged from me.” 

“ On the principle that if one woman goes 
back on a man, he’ll take the next one.” 

“ Perhaps. Then, with all the cunning of 
madness, she contrived to get my wife out here 
a thousand miles from home, have her in the 
next room, call on me and get me to exhibit a 
certain degree of intimacy with her while my 
wife looked on from the adjoining room — and 
then—” 

“ And then your wife broke up everything, 
by marching straight into the room and de- 
nouncing you.” 

“ And the poor woman’s mind was so scatter- 
ed that she could bear no more, and she went 
raving mad and sought to kill me. Poor, poor 
Annette ! ” 

“ Harry, I almost think you were in love with 
that woman, yourself.” 

“ Well — I suppose it is impossible for a 


196 OKLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 

warm-hearted man to feel that a woman is de- 
voted to him, and not experience any warmth 
of feeling in return. And I do believe, I do 
believe that woman was passionately fond of 
me. But Emily ! What charm could the most 
passionately devoted woman in the world have 
for a man, when he had Emily to think of! ” 

“ I guess you’re all right, Harry. But I con- 
fess I did feel just a little bit anxious about 
your strict fidelity of heart towards the little 
Farmer’s Daughter!” 

“ Oh, don’t speak so flippantly about it all. 
This is more to me than my life. If Emily 
shouldn’t let me come back to her — if she 
should continue to distrust me — I showld have 
to go to another such a place as that one in 
which they keep the poor Annette. And oh — 
she w'ill never, never take me back into her 
heart again ! My God, what shall I do ? ” 

“ Harry, if some men acted like you, I'd 
laugh at ’em. And if some other men acted 
like you, I’d be disgusted enough with ’em to 
kick ’em out of my office. But I can’t laugh 
at you, for I’m too fond of you, and I don’t feel 
disgusted a bit with you, because my mind is 
broad enough to comprehend all your conflict- 
ing emotions. Harry, my boy, give us your 
hand, and tell me whether you want a little 
plain advice.” 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 197 

“ I can take anything from you.” 

The Inspector looked at him rather doubt- 
fully and shook his head and said : 

“ No, you wouldn’t do it. No use to give 
any fellow advice under that sort of circum- 
stances.” 

“ Don’t hesitate to speak.” 

“ Where is your wife ? Do you know ? ” 

“Yes, I know. She’s up at the old home 
in Massachusetts, where she was born and 
grew to a lovely womanhood, and where I 
ought to have been struck dead before I ever 
met her.” 

“ Gone home to her mother, eh ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Well, you go there too.” 

“ Go there ! They’d turn me out of the 
house ! ” 

“ Pshaw ! Knew there was no use in talking 
to a crazy man. Then there is just one very 
desirable thing for you to do, Mr. Henry Stuart. 
Just you go right home to New York, and fill 
your pants-pockets with silver dollars for 
sinkers, and if you can manage to elude the vigi- 
lance of the omnipresent bridge policeman, do 
you go straight out into the middle of the 
Brooklyn Bridge, and dump yourself headfore- 
most down among the ferry-boats.” 


198 


ONLY A FARMER’ S DAUGHTER. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Once more the autumn sun was creeping 
around the horizon that bounded the Berkshire 
Hills. The grass had grown, and been mowed, 
and grown again. The grain had sprouted, as 
well as it could among the rocks, and spindled 
its way up a few feet, and blossomed out in 
golden heads that bent low with age, and were 
gathered to their fathers and slept in the barn. 
And now, the chill winds told of coming frost 
and wintry snow, and rainbows were painted 
over all the trees from mountain-top to val- 
ley. 

Farmer Taft strode uneasily about the old 
farm-house and attended to the chores. He 
went through all the customary duties that he 
had gone through for sixty years, but his heart 
was far away from them, and he did them from 
force of habit rather than for any reason. 

Mother, too, was bent a little more in the 
shoulders than a year ago, and heavy wrinkles 
came down from her eyes and around the cor- 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


199 


ners of her mouth. Something was surely 
wrong in the old home. 

“ Miss Em’ly don’t get no better — that’s one 
thing sartain,” muttered Joe, as he sat down on 
a log and rested a bit from the wood-pile that 
he was . sawing. “ She don’t get no better. An’ 
it’s a darn shame that somethin’ can’t happen to 
prevent her mopin’ around in such a fashion.” 

Here joe gave vent to his feelings by strik- 
ing the axe vigorously into the chopping-block 
and leaving it there.” 

“ And only to think ’t she don’t never say a 
word to pop and marm about the cause on it 
all ! An’ both on ’em gettin’ grayer and stoop- 
iner right afore her eyes. An’ goldarn’d if I 
can say one single, solitary word to ’em, an’ 
they as good as know I must know somethin’ 
about it all. There she comes now.” 

Joe seized the saw and began working vigor- 
ously at a tough old hickory that was full of 
knots. 

“ Joe ! ” 

He sawed away more violently than ever. 
She spoke a little louder : 

“ Joe!” 

“ Oh ! Ah ! Why, is that you, Miss Em’ly ? ” 

“ Yes, Joe.” 

“ And I’m blest if you don’t look paler ’n 
ever.” 


200 


ONLY A F ARMEN'S DAUGHTER. 


“ It doesn’t matter.” 

“Yes, it does matter. Now look here, Miss 
Em’ly, jest excuse an old friend if I speak out 
my mind jest a little plain.” 

“ Say whatever you please, Joe.” 

“ What I want to say is this — an’ you excuse 
me — but I know how much you suffer, an’ yet 
it don’t seem fair you should make them that's 
near an’ dear to you suffer so.” 

Emily looked at him with open eyes. 

“ There’s the best old man in the world, your 
father, and the best old woman in the world, 
your mother, both totterin’ right down to their 
graves out of sorrow fer you.” 

“ For me, Joe ? ” 

“ Exactly ; you don’t look to the right hand 
nor to the left. You don’t see it’s a-killin’ ’em. 
An’ I ain’t allowed to say one blessed word — I, 
that could explain it all to ’em if you hadn’t 
shet my mouth. Don’t you know, Miss Em’ly, 
that it’s the awfullest thing in the world to be 
in suspense about somebody that’s more ’n life 
to you, and that’s sufferin’, an’ you not know 
what it’s all about ? ” 

“ Why, Joe, this is a revelation to me. You 
must be mistaken. They’re not taking it to 
heart like that ! ” 

“ Ain’t they ! ” 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


201 


“ But Joe, what if there should have been 
some horrid mistake about this after all ? 
Did’nt I do wrong to come away from Harry, 
and never give him any chance to explain ? 
Wasn’t it very unwifely of me to assume that 
he was wrong, without a word ? ” 

Joe went on sawing, the big drops of perspi- 
ration on his forehead could not all have come 
from the work. 

“ Joe, tell me. Do you know where he is, all 
this time since ” — she buried her face in her 
hands — “since-— you know when, Joe ? ” 

“ Know ? No, I don’t know.” 

“ Isn’t it strange he hasn’t tried to find me ? 
Joe, if he had come within a few days of when 
— of that time — I would never have consented 
to see him.” 

“ Wise man to keep out of the way,” muttered 

Joe. 

“ But now I would really like to know what 
he would say. And, Joe, I shall never — oh, I 
shall never be happy again in the world.” 

“ There, now, Miss Emily, set right down on 
the log there an’ rest yerself, If you’re a-goin’ 
to do the hankercher act — well, now, Miss 
Em’ly, don’t, for I ain’t got any hankercher out 
here jest now.” 

“ But, Joe, what shall I do ? ” 


202 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


“ Now you’re talkin’. In the fust place, why 
don t you make a clean breast on it to yer old 
mother ? Don’t kill her with mopin’, but jest 
go right up to the Cap’n’s office an’ settle.” 

“ But, Joe, suppose he should be not to blame 
after all. How cruel of me to have set dear 
mother against him, then ! ” 

Joe put another log on the horse, and 
went on with the sawing. The expression of his 
face indicated that he had no more to say. 

The maple leaves with their wealth of gold 
and crimson floated silently down between them 
— beautiful reminders of a summer that was 
gone. 

“ Dead leaves, Joe. Dead. Everything is 
dead to me ! ” 

“ If death made everything as beautiful as 
them ’ere leaves, Miss Em’ly, it wouldn’t be a 
bad plan to have a few more dead things 
around.” 

J oe took up one of the leaves tenderly. There 
was a vein of poetry in his rough nature, that 
might have been developed, with careful tilling. 

“ I think, Miss Em’ly, that of all the fresh 
green leaves that God ever made, there ain’t 
one on ’em so beautiful as the dead ones, that 
come like so many flakes of snow out of them 
sugar trees. There ain’t no time in all the year 


ONLY A FARMER’S DAUGHTER. 


203 


when them sugar maples are half so beautiful 
as when the sun has shone and the winds blew 
and the rain descended for all summer long, an’ 
after a stormy life the leaves come down one 
after the other, to be buried. Miss Em’ly, if 
you’re made o’ the right stuff — an’ I believe 
you air — you’ll get beautifuller the older you 
git. I never say nothin’ about it, Miss Em’ly, 
cause ’tain’t no use — but I’ve known somethin’ 
p’raps about heart-aches. An’, Miss Em’ly, if 
you don’t give way t© it, and keep a stiff upper 
lip, Miss Em’ly, you’ll come out all right.” 

“Joe, you’re a brave, good man. If I had 
the courage and sound sense that you have, I 
shouldn’t be so cruel to those that are dear to 
me. You have opened my eyes, Joe, and I’ll 
try to do what’s right.” 

“Gosh! ’’said Joe, dropping his saw. “If 
you don’t have a chance inside of five minutes, 
my name ain’t ” — here he paused and whistled 
softly. 

“ She didn’t see,” he said to himself. “ I’ll 
just get quietly out of here. Excuse me a min- 
ute, Miss Em’ly.” 

Joe took his saw under his arm, and went 
toward the shed. 

Up the long pathway from the gate came a 
a wayfarer, timid and hesitating. Either he was 


204 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


weary, or faint, or he had some unpleasant task 
to perform, for he came slowly, and sat down 
twice on the grass, with his head between his 
hands. 

At length, he seemed to struggle to his feet 
with an effort. He seized a small hand-satchel 
that lay beside him, and came forward with 
head cast down. 

He came along under the maple-trees. The 
trees shed their beautiful leaves over him as 
over all else. His foot stepped lightly and 
noiselessly on the sawdust covered ground. He 
had come within a half-dozen steps of Emily 
before he saw her. Then he stopped, and 
looked humbly and reverently at her ; but she 
saw him not. 

He feared to move, or to disturb her. Her 
face was hidden and he could not divine where 
her thoughts wandered. 

Joe stood within hearing distance behind the 
trees and watched them. Joe’s hands were 
clasped, and he looked with his whole life and 
soul to see what they would do. Who could 
tell ? He was an unlettered man, and she had 
been with gentlemen and ladies. But the 
glamour had paled away from her eyes, and 
she could now see, perhaps, what a real man’s 
heart was worth. Perhaps— perhaps if she 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 205 

found she could never go back to the other — 
but no, it was too much to hope. 

The strange man took a step nearer — then 
another. Then he knelt before her. 

“ Emily ! ” 

The crack of doom would not have sent an- 
other such a thrill as went through Joe at the 
sound of that one word floating out through 
the rustling leaves. She looked up, startled. 
Joe’s nails dug in the palms of his horny hands 
as he waited an instant longer. 

But it was only an instant ; for she said, 
“ Harry ! ” and reached out her arms to him. 

Joe saw no more. He bowed his head for a 
moment, in one mighty struggle, but when he 
turned toward the house there was on his face 
a gleam that must have been a reflection from 
the wing of one of those angels that watch over 
good men. The great hope of his life was 
buried, yet he felt himself a stronger and better 
man. 

And they went up toward the house together, 
those two, as they had gone when the happy 
days first began. 

They stood, arm in arm, as mother Taft 
opened the door and came forward a step to 
meet them. And father, from the piazza saw 
them coming, too, and was glad ; for he knew 


206 


ONLY A FARMER'S DAUGHTER. 


the trouble was over. His old heart was com- 
forted as he looked in Emily’s face and saw 
smiles there again, and involuntarily he spread 
his arms outward and upward in silent benedic- 
tion. 

Joe also came from the shed, with the saw 
still under his arm, and pressed Harry’s hand 
with a grasp of real welcome as he said : 

“ I’m only a farmer boy, Mr. Stuart, and 
don’t know nothin’ about love matters, but I 
can see you and she love each other the 
right way. God bless you.” 

And Emily, as her father patted her on the 
shoulder, said : 

“ I may be only a farmer’s daughter, but 
Harry loves me more than all the great 
world.” 

And the rainbow-colored leaves showered 
God’s blessing down around about them all. 


END. 


New Book Publications 


A Woman’s Devotion ; or, The Mixed Marriage. A story of the 

Rival Detectives. By John W. Postgate. 12mo; 270 pages ; paper. .8 .35 


Princess Andrea (Anselma) ; or, In Spite of All. Adapted from 
the French by Arthur D. Hall. This story is based upon the 

famous drama of Victorien Sardou. 12mo; 256 pages; paper 35 

Called Back. By Hugh Conway. 12mo; paper; 228 pages; price.. .35 

Chicago Sensations ; or, [Leaves from the Note-Book of a 
Chicago Reporter and Detective. Illustrated; 12mo; 154 

pages; paper 25 

Dark Days. By Hugh Conway. 12mo; 264 pages; paper 35 

Fedora ; or, The Tragedy in the Rue de la Paix. A most orig- 
inal, powerful and exciting French romance. Translated from the 
French of Adolph Belot. Illustrated; 12mo, cloth; 303 pages; 
price, 35c in paper; in cloth 1.00 

Fun Better Than Physic. By W. W. Hall, M. D. 12mo, cloth ; 

344 pages; price 1.00 

Fast and Boose. By Arthur Griffiths, author of “The Chronicles 

of Newgate.” 12mo; 233 pages; paper 35 

Prince Zilah, a Parisian Romance. Adapted from the French 

of Jules Claretie, by Arthur D. Hall. 12mo; 298 pages; paper. .35 
Suppressed Sensations; or, Reaves from the Note-Book of 

a Chicago Reporter. Illustrated; 12mo, cloth; 254 pages; price 1.00 

The Matapan Affair. From the French of Fortune du Boisgobey. 

12mo; 208 pages; paper 35 

The Secret of Success; or, How to Get On in the World. 

By W. H. Davenport Adams. 12mo, cloth; 388 pages 1.00 

The Black Sorceress ; a Tale of the Peasants’ War. Adapted 
from the French of Alfred de Brehat. Illustrated; 12mo; 200 
pages; price, in paper, 35c; cloth 1.00 

The Executioner’s Revenge. A story of the French Revolution. 

An intensely tragic romance. Translated from the French of Leonce 

Ferret. 12mo, cloth; 313 pages; price, in paper, 35c; in cloth 1.00 

The Gray and the Blue. A story founded on incidents connected 
with the War for the Union. By E. R. Roe. 12mo, cloth; 292 
pages; price 1.00 

The Lakeside Musings. By Ten Eyck White. 12mo, cloth; 300 

pages 1.00 

Was it a Murder; or, Who is the Heir? From the French of 
Fortune du Boisgobey. 12mo, cloth ; 341 pages ; price, in paper, 

35c; in cloth 1.00 

West of the Missouri ; Sketches and Stories of Frontier 
Life in the Old Times. By Jas. W. Steele. 12mo, paper; 313 

pages 35 

Won at West Point ; a Romance on the Hudson. A charming 
American story, marked by brilliancy of style, keenness of satire, 
frolicsome wit and mirth-provoking humor. By “ Fush.” 12mo, 
cloth; 300 pages 1.00 

Woman’s Work and Worth in Girlhood, Maidenhood and 


Wifehood. By W. H. Davenport Adams. 12mo, cloth; 370 pages 1 . 00 
Any of the above books sent, post-paid, on receipt of price, by 

RAND, McNALLY & CO., 

323 Broadway, New York. 148-154 Monroe St., Chicago. 



% V 

i 


A 


r" A) * 




'If 


— r 


4 V 






y 




L 


,<- 

U' 


v- > 


/^N 


<$> 




fee 


' 




0 


V 


)v. 


I 


V 7 


10 




ra; 


■n 




< ^ 




,*/• 


<%i 





fe 

)Q 

■'M'WW ^ ° 

[§Ilp 

<&a&i 
<&>& 

£ &&J&, 

i#* *® 






“A STRONG MIND IN A SOUND BODY.” 


CROSBY’S 

Vitalized Phosphites 

Composed of the Nerve-Giving- Principles of the Ox-Brain and 
the Embryo of the Wheat and Oat. 

FOR 15 YEARS HAS BEEN THE STANDARD REMEDY with PHYSICIANS 

Who Treat Mental and Nervous Disorders. 

It is the best remedy ever used to enrich the blood ; thus giving a soft, 
clear skin and a beautiful complexion. Many ladies use cosmetics, but 
if Vitalized Phosphites is taken, neither cosmetic nor coloring will be 
required. It aids in the bodily, and wonderfully in the mental growth of 
children. It relieves all forms of nervous derangements, lassitude, pros- 
tration and loss of memory. It has been used by Bismarck, Gladstone, 
the Emperor Dom Pedro, with excellent results. It is a VITAL Phos- 
phite, not a Laboratory Phosphate, or Soda Water absurdity. 

for sale by Druggists, or sent by mail, $ 1 . 56 W . 25th St* ? N. Y. 


TO ALL OF THE 

PRINCIPAL CITIES 

AND 

EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. 

Globes, Map Racks, Spring Map Rollers, German Maps, Wall and Pocket 
Maps, Historical Maps, Classical, Biblical, Historical, Anatomical, Astro- 
nomical, Physical and General Atlases of all kinds kept in stock. Address, 

RAND, McNALLY & CO., Map Publishers and Engravers, 

148, 150, 152 and 154 Monroe Street, CHICAGO. 



PENETRATING CENTRES 


Michigan. 


Illinois. Iowa. Wisconsin 


Minnesota. Dakota. Nebraska Wyoming 


THE ONLY LINE TO THE 




M. HUGHITT, 


H. C. WICKER, 


T.afflc Manage 


President and General Manage. 


E. P. WILSON 


General Passenger Agent 









i 


'1 ' ' ' . ». 


























































































11 lA'A'V 'n' 







